In today’s cricketing world, miracles don’t creep into our consciousness – they invade our screens. A hundred Vaibhav Suryavanshis are a click away, endlessly played, instantly shared, consumed together. But in 1988, such magic was private. The 15-year-old’s debut century existed only in the breathless mutterings of those inside the Wankhede, their memories the only emerging archive of genius. Being there that day isn’t just about watching cricket; it was to witness a secret before the world appropriated it.
Thirty-seven years ago, on a balmy December afternoon at the iconic cricket ground, Mumbai cricket gathered in quiet anticipation. Home games rarely disrupted the city’s rhythm, but December 11 was different. The light fell gently on the turf, the sea breeze drifted in, and somewhere beneath the hum of conversation was a deeper murmur—a sense that something rare, perhaps transformative, was about to happen. The schoolboy, who was already the talk of the maidans and classroom corridors, was about to take his first steps into first-class cricket. And so the city turned its head.
Giants who shaped Mumbai’s cricketing mythology sat in the stands. Sunil Gavaskar, recently retired and still the most revered figure in Indian batting, watched intently from the VIP box. He was flanked by Eknath Solkar – a brilliant close fielder from the 1970s – and former Mumbai captain Milind Rege, each warning of the possibility that this was no ordinary debut. They came out of curiosity: the stories of the schoolboy who piled up runs on impossible piles reached them too. They wanted to find out if he was real.
He was.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar walked out to bat on that December day with a calm that seemed inconceivable to anyone barely older than the boys chasing tennis balls across Azad Maidan. His legend began in school cricket – Harris Shield epics, impossible partnerships, 300s and 600s that blurred the line between scorecards and myths. But this was different. This was Ranji Trophy cricket, the nursery of Indian greats, and Mumbai was not a city that indulged in miracles without examination.
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
The editor of India Today Consulting, Rajdeep Sardesai – then a 23-year-old journalist eager for his first real reporting assignment – convinced his editor to let him be in the stands while Tendulkar did this walk. Later, he recalled the moment vividly: the sparse crowd, the low hum, and a small cluster of schoolchildren from Sharadashram Vidyamandir chanting for their classmate with unshakable conviction.
“‘Sachin nakki shambhar karnar (Sachin will surely score a hundred),’ everyone cheered confidently. ‘Shambhar’, the Marathi word for the century, has echoed through city maidans for decades, the ultimate indicator of cricketing excellence,” Rajdeep wrote on his blog in 2017.
At the crease, Tendulkar started cautiously, surviving a narrow LBW shout that on another day might have ended the story before it began, Rajdeep recounted. But once he settled in, he developed moves with an authority that startled even those who came expecting brilliance. His partner, Alan Sippy, recalled gently telling the boy to relax – aaram se – only for Tendulkar to smile and respond with a quintessentially Mumbai word: “Bindaas”. Carefree. Unencumbered. And then he proceeded to bowl the next ball with a clear intent that left Sippy, a seasoned first-class cricketer, momentarily speechless.
As the innings progressed, Wankhede slowly transformed. Spectators came from Churchgate offices and nearby colleges; others left errands to find a place. Every shot drew louder cheers, every boundary fired up the crowd. By late afternoon, what had started as a whisper had turned into a rising tide of excitement.
Tendulkar reached his hundred – an unbeaten 100 on debut – with the inevitability of a rising tide. Aged just 15 years and 232 days, he was the youngest Indian to score a century on first-class debut. Gavaskar was among the first to stand in applause. Solkar, Rege and the other Bombay stalwarts joined him, smiling at each other in mutual recognition that they had witnessed the appearance of someone special, perhaps even historic. Screengrab by @100MasterBlastr/X
And yet the boy himself remained surprisingly unaffected by the moment. It was no extravagant celebration, no dramatic flourish, Rajdeep recalled.
He returned to the dressing room with what Shishir Hattangadi later described as “barely a hint of a shy smile”, carrying himself as if he had simply done his duty. His coach Ramakant Achrekar famously told reporters, “He has a long way to go. This is just the beginning.” It was both an assurance and a prophecy.
The match itself turned into a footnote – Mumbai dominated, Gujarat resisted and the match was headed for a draw – but Tendulkar’s innings overshadowed everything. He introduced the cricketing world to a player whose precocious posture would soon become a calling card, whose appetite for runs would redefine Indian batting and whose humility would remain remarkably unchanged from the first afternoon.
Sachin Tendulkar has arrived. And everyone in the stands – Gavaskar, Solkar, Rege, school children, journalists, curious onlookers – knew they were witnessing the beginning of something extraordinary.
For Sardesai, the moment brought his first front-page sub-headline: “A New Dawn in Indian Cricket”. It brought a new heir for Mumbai. And for Indian cricket, it marked the beginning of a journey that would span 24 years, 100 international centuries and the nation’s adoration.
Just 11 months after his Ranji debut, Tendulkar quickly established himself in the national side. At 16, he became India’s second-youngest Test cricketer when he made his debut against Pakistan in Karachi in November 1989 – a baptism of fire against Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Imran Khan at the height of their powers.
He took blows to the body, even to the face in Sialkot, but refused to back down and earned admiration for his courage as much as his technique. At the end of that first series, he carved out rough posts in hostile conditions and stroked a resilient 59 in Faisalabad – signaling to the world, as he had a year earlier at the Wankhede, that age is no barrier in class.
It was clear that the prodigy who once walked out to polite applause at a Ranji match had now stepped onto a much bigger stage, carrying with him a promise he had made and kept since he was 15.
– The end
Issued by:
Akshay Ramesh
Published on:
December 11, 2025
