Sachin looks up at the sky after completing his 35th Test century in Delhi. (Reuters)

Sachin Tendulkar set on Saturday a world record for most Test hundreds, stroking his 35th century. Sunil Gavaskar, the original little master whose record Sachin surpassed, recalls his first glimpse of a “little kid with a big curly mop of hair” at the nets and describes how it feels to be overtaken.

Way back in 1988, the Mumbai grapevine had been buzzing with two names as young cricketers to watch. One was Vinod Kambli and the other Sachin Tendulkar.

Mumbai’s grapevine is famous, for it has this unerring way of spotting talent, and though it occasionally gets it wrong, for the most part it has an uncanny eye about talent. Having heard so much about these two, it was only natural to try and see them play, and so after making the right enquiries, I found out that both would be at the nets for the Mumbai probables.

It’s always better to see young talent without them knowing that they are being watched, if only to ensure that they aren’t too nervous if they know they are being watched and so would be much more natural than otherwise.

So standing from the back of the players’ sitting area of those days, I watched as a little kid with a big curly mop of hair walked in to bat against the best of Mumbai’s bowlers. A few minutes was all it needed to know that here was a special talent and when I went home and told my wife about it, her reaction was that he must be really special.

It’s never easy to predict stardom for anybody as there are so many imponderables in life, but Sachin was lucky, for he had a family that had and still has a strong value system, and so even as he started to climb the ladder of fame, his family made sure that his feet were grounded.

He, of course, was tremendously focused and knew that it was his cricket that was getting him the attention, and so he never wavered from his task, which was to score runs by the hundreds.

He was again fortunate to have in Mark Mascarenhas a genuine well-wisher who went on to become like an elder brother to him and guide him off the field and take away his worries about his future. This enabled him to concentrate fully on his game and not worry about anything else.

His 35th century was a matter of time and he made sure that in scoring it, his team is now in a position of strength.

It may have taken a bit longer coming for his fans, who expect a ton every time he goes in to bat, but if one looks at the frequency of his centuries, they are coming at a great rate, second only to the one and only Sir Don Bradman.

Now that this is done, I am sure that he will go on to score many more, for he is only 32 years old and should be able to play for another six years at least, if not eight. He could well finish with 50 centuries in Tests and be the first to score 100 international centuries.

One says first instead of only, simply because the game of cricket has a way of proving people wrong and just as nobody would have envisaged a bowler taking 600 wickets, it’s tough to say there will be only one player who will score 100 international centuries.

When a record is taken, there is a tinge of sadness, but when it’s broken by a talent as prodigious as Sachin and a fellow Indian, that tinge is forgotten in a trice and one rejoices at a new benchmark being set. Make no mistake, he is not going to stop at 35, but will score many more and give pleasure to cricket lovers all over the world.

These lines are being written from near Mount Everest, and it’s a sight to behold, just as Sachin with that heavy bat has always been on the field.

Congrats, Sachin, and God bless.