May 19 :     Sachin Tendulkar rushed back home on his father?s death, setting foot in Mumbai close to midnight. In another time zone, almost at the same moment, the Indian innings folded up at Leicester, three runs short of the Zimbabwe total. Marathi poet Ramesh Tendulkar, who had been ill for a while and had an angioplasty in February, died of a heart attack at his Bandra residence. He was 69. The family said the cremation will be on Thursday. Boyhood friend Vinod Kambli was at the airport to receive Sachin, his wife Anjali, daughter Sara and brother Ajit. Kambli said: ?I embraced him. I haven?t talked to him. I am going to his house rightaway.? In the morning, one of Sachin?s neighbours in Mumbai called India coach Aunshuman Gaekwad to inform him of the death. At a loss, Gaekwad called Anjali and asked her to speak to Sachin. Only after that did Gaekwad and manager Brijesh Patel meet Sachin and arrange his return to Mumbai. Sachin left Leicester for London in a car around 5.30 am and took a British Airways flight out of Heathrow. No one in the team could bring himself to ask Sachin when he intended to return. ?It was not the time. We will wait for him to reach home and then speak about it. Of course, we hope it will be soon,? Gaekwad said. Raj Singh Dungarpur, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said at Leicester the decision of when to return would be left to Sachin. ?He can come only when he thinks it is right for him to come. Nobody had the guts or the indecency to ask him when he will come,? Dungarpur said. Calling him ?very special ? as a player, as a human being,? Dungarpur said Sachin was worried about his mother. The team manager hoped Sachin would be back for India?s match against Sri Lanka. India next play Kenya at Bristol on Sunday and then go on to clash with world champions Lanka on May 26 and hosts England on May 29. But after today?s loss to Zimbabwe, there may not be any need for Sachin to return. The team was told of Sachin?s bereavement in the morning. India and Zimbabwe lined up before the match and observed a minute of silence as a mark of respect for Sachin?s father. The full house at Grace Road also joined in. Fans who rushed to the Tendulkars? Sahitya Sahwas housing colony in Mumbai were greeted by a board draped in black cloth. ?Ramesh Tendulkar has died. His body has been kept in the morgue. Nobody is allowed to visit the family. This is a request.? Policemen posted outside saw to it that the request was honoured. Several friends of Sachin and of his brothers sat in groups in the compound of the building. One of them helped take the body to the morgue around 5.15 this morning. Outside the compound, a board bigger than the one at the gates with a tiger?s head emblazoned in colour, said: ?Hindustan?s cricket kasautiveer Sachin Tendulkar?s father Ramesh Tendulkar has died.? The Tendulkars? housing colony is hardly a stone?s throw from another famous house of Bandra, Bal Thackeray?s Matoshri. Ramesh Tendulkar, who had returned from Pune last night, suffered a stroke after midnight. His daughter Savita was with him till 11 pm after which she left for her in-laws? house. Eminent historian Y.P. Phadke, an old friend of the Tendulkar family, remembered Ramesh Tendulkar as a poet and respected critic. ?He was an unassuming man. Maybe Sachin has inherited his unassuming nature from his father,? Phadke said. Vijaya Rajadhyaksh, a Sahitya Academy winner, recalled: ?This (Sachin?s father?s home) was the only house in the society that would not watch Sachin playing. Probably the tension was too much for him.?