Making his debut via the Sydney Test of the 1991-92 home series against India, Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne got a first-hand experience of how good Sachin Tendulkar was.
Just two years into his international career before that trip, young Tendulkar had already taken rapid strides with his game.
The then 18-year-old struck a wonderful hundred to help India draw the game and then followed it up with an even better ton in Perth on the bounciest surface in the world.
Warne remembers him and the rest of the Australian team feeling amazed by baby-faced Tendulkar's genius at that age.
“When I first saw Sachin Tendulkar in the first Test, he was 21 (18). But looked about 10. I thought this guy was pretty special. He’s smacking us all over the park and he’s 10 years of age," Warne said while commentating for Sky Sports during the second Test between England and Pakistan.
"You can tell when players come out and it’s the time they’ve got. That’s the class about them. You can tell that about good players... the time, elegance... it all looks easy."
Tendulkar retired from the game in 2013 as its highest Test and ODI run-maker, vindicating what Warne & company saw in him on that first tour down under.
"The good players, if they get a good ball to score off, they don’t hit the fielder, they find the gaps, hit it to the boundary and that puts pressure back on the bowler."
"That means as a batsman, you can get more bad balls. If you’re just looking to surive and you haven’t got that intent as a batsman as a bowler you feel like you can bowl wherever you want and the batsman is not going to hurt you," Warne added.
