Waqar Younis, one of Pakistan's most skilled bowlers, had made his Test debut in the same match as Sachin Tendulkar. The India vs Pakistan Test match at Karachi in 1989 was the start of two talented cricketers' journey in cricket. 

But that wasn't the first time Waqar heard about Tendulkar. The India batsman had made a name for himself in school and domestic cricket before making a debut at the international level.

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Talking about the first memory of Sachin, the ex-Pakistan cricketer said, “About Sachin, the entire India Under-19 team, they were just raving about him, saying how good that little kid is. He’s only a schoolboy, scoring triple-centuries at school. Who scores triple-centuries at school? Even scoring a century at school is an amazing thing."

“We always knew there was this young kid coming on the block who was going to be amazing. At first look, he didn’t really give me the impression that he’s going to be the great Sachin Tendulkar, what he is today. What he has done over the years is amazing, on the field, off the field. At that particular time, I didn’t realize he was going to be such a big name in cricket. But his hard work paid off.", he added on The Greatest Rivalry podcast.

During a match at Sialkot in the series, Waqar and Sachin faced each other and it got a bit nasty. Tendulkar was injured by a bouncer but he refused to walk off the field. The 16-year-old got hit on his nose, but still went on to score a fifty.

“The first Test was at Karachi and I got him early. I think he scored 15. He played a couple of really classy on-drives and straight drives in that 15. He didn’t score much after that in that series but the fifty you were mentioning which he scored in Sialkot, that was on a green top wicket,” the former Pakistan quick said.

“We wanted a result. We wanted the series to have a result and we produced a real green-topper. He came in and got hit on the nose very early in the innings. For a 16-year-old kid, he looked pale at the time, but very determined. I remember [Navjot Singh] Sidhu was batting with him and they both took five, seven minutes and [then] he was ready to go. Then he played that knock of fifty which really showed his class. We knew he was going to be something very special by then.”