Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 4:33 am:

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Tendulkar he has observed at close quarters - played with him, been led by him, captained him, and is now back to playing with him. Mention the name and he reacts with a spontaneous "great". No thought, just a sudden "great". The two have been like true chums on this trip, constantly motivating each other and chirping away incessantly in the slips.

"We've opened in one-day cricket a lot, nearly 150-160 games," he says, shadow-practising the right-hander's square cut. "We know each other's batting, what the other guy wants to do, what the other guy is trying to do."

So, like the rest in their mid-30s, should Tendulkar be at the height of his powers too? The response arrives in a tone that says, 'Stop talking rubbish.' "When you play for 18 years you can never be the same," he says. "Especially when you have been so brilliant. But he's still one of the best.

"That innings at The Oval, which he played, I told him after the Test match, 'It's an innings for everyone to watch, for every youngster to watch and learn.' For somebody who's got 25,000 runs, they kept hitting him on his body. He was not hitting the ball well. Still he stood there and batted, batted, batted, batted, batted. And he got an 80. It shows the hunger of that man."

One gets the feeling that by using "batted" five times in the sentence Ganguly is trying to explain the greatness within the struggle, the humility in seeing oneself exposed yet achieving the end result. He thinks for a moment before considering the best option. "I think nobody has the right to talk about Sachin Tendulkar's game," he says. "It's just a phenomenon." With a thud, he plonks his bat on the red carpet.

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