Sachin under pressure? No way, he is having a ball !

On par with Don Bradman at 29 Test centuries, Sunil Gavaskar’s record within easy grasp, he’s staggering back. He’s aching to come good so badly, he’s not able to relax. He’s getting impatient, as he sits it out while the openers and No 3 occupy the crease. Watch the body language, it is concluded.

You’d never know looking at him on the field, in the hotel as he defeats one teammate after another at table tennis. You need a younger member of the team to tell you that Tendulkar rarely ventures out of his room to realise that this extrovertish burst is a rare sight.

Can the worry. Give him a break.

Bandaged heroism

It was more than a photo-op, it was more than a defiant gesture by this most self-effacing of cricketers to effectively silence a chorus of criticism that his basket of tricks is emptying. It was a damning statement on Indian cricket’s inability to gauge its own strengths, to get bogged down by the opposition’s well-reputed strengths. Yes, Kumble’s injury was tragic, he could have forced a follow-on after India piled up 513. Yes, let’s be grateful that Srinath is for once complemented with two competent seamers. But when even stray observers were howling that by the second half, spinners would get encouragement from the St John’s pitch, India inexplicably failed to give the Harbhajan-Kumble the one chance of the tour to hunt as a pair. Sachin Tendulkar’s success in the past couple of days proves as much.

Hand on ’keeper

Again it was more than Ratra’s unbeaten 115, his presence of mind at the time when India were teetering on the brink of collapse.

(Never mind that he sinks back in his pool-side chair later in the evening when informed that it’s the first century by a wicket-keeper abroad since 1953. ‘‘You mean, after 49 years?’’ he asks, visibly struggling to comprehend his newly acquired place in cricketing history.) One image lingers. Little Ratra — the youngest member of this young side, at 20 — friskily making for Kumble every time he would finish an over, patting him on the back.

‘‘That’s my job as a wicket-keeper. I have to keep up the team morale,’’ he says. India’s opening troubles still persist, but it’s perhaps time that wicket-keeping question is settled once and for all.