Sachin Tendulkar after completing 15,000 runs, during the third day of the first Test, against the West Indies at the Kotla, on Tuesday. (REUTers)

New Delhi: The West Indies bowlers didn’t trouble Sachin Tendulkar at the Kotla, on Tuesday, but the card-key to his suite at the ITC Maurya did.

“Wonder what’s happened... I’ve been doing this for years, but something has gone wrong today,” Sachin exclaimed in The Telegraph’s presence. A few tries later, though, the door did open with the same card-key.

The Master looked relieved.

Once inside his suite, Sachin was greeted with a chocolate cake, courtesy the hotel, which had the most appropriate word as a piping: “Congratulations.”

Sachin just glanced at it and got down to more serious business, that of being satisfied or otherwise with a couple of new bats bearing his Master Blaster signature. He liked one (“superb lift”) and asked for adjustments in the other.

The gentleman who’d come with the bats made the relevant notes.

Before settling down to chat with a few friends, who’d turned up while he was inspecting the bats, Sachin spoke exclusively to this Reporter.

“I’m not sure what to say about getting to 15,000 runs (in Test cricket)... Feels nice for sure... My first thought was that Rahul (Dravid) had also been the non-striker when I’d got the 10,000th-run,” Sachin said.

That was at the Eden, in March 2005, against Pakistan.

Sachin added: “I remembered my father (late Ramesh Tendulkar) as well... Thought of him... His blessings, I know, are always there... I thanked God, something I do all the time.”

Asked if he was excited at the possibility of getting his 100th international hundred, on Wednesday, Sachin grinned and replied: “Look, what’s important is for India to win the first Test... I’m focused on that alone.”

Sachin will be resuming on 33. To get to that milestone-hundred, he’ll have to score 67 of the 124 runs still needed by India to take the lead in this three-Test series.

So, two equations are going to be at play!

Also speaking exclusively, Dravid recalled: “Six years ago, Sachin had laughed when I’d said he should go for 15,000 Test runs... Today, I asked him to go for 20,000! He laughed yet again and I’d to tell him not to do so...”

“Awesome,” is how Yuvraj Singh, who’d dedicated his Man of the Tournament award in the World Cup to Sachin, described The Master’s achievement. “Anything that he does is awesome... It’s mind-boggling,” Yuvraj pointed out.

Mind-boggling is how Sunil Gavaskar summed it up as well.