Business Standard

Master Blaster

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

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Our Bureau New Delhi
Given the country's interest in cricket, the extreme being the burning of effigies of Kiran More in Kolkata for presiding over the removal of Sourav Ganguly from the test side, it's hardly surprising that almost all newspapers have carried Sachin Tendulkar's record-breaking century as the lead story on the day it happened, and India's progress in the match on each day of the Kotla event. But while the non-English language dailies have tended to be full of praise, and statistics, the English-language dailies have scored in terms of expert comments and the side stories. One English language paper, for instance, had an article by Tendulkar's wife, another quoted her as saying that Sunil Gavaskar had not sent anything so far "" when Tendulkar equalled his record of 34 centuries, it appears Gavaskar had sent 34 bottles of champagne to the Tendulkars. The Indian Express had an edit page article that pointed out that Tendulkar had been reduced to such a level that it took a record like this to get people talking about him again.
 
In the north, Punjab Kesari had the headline on Tendulkar's record against a backdrop of the tricolour across the front page as the lead story. On each day of the match, there was a front page story in the paper. Dainik Bhaskar had several front page anchors on the match, and Tendulkar as the lead story on the day. Rajasthan Patrika was an exception, and reported most match stories on the panel on page one, with the main story inside. Even Tendulkar's record was a two-column lead picture with statistics on page one, after a picture of Miss Icelend who'd become Miss World the same day.
 
The three Kannada newspapers "" Kannada Prabha, Vijaya Karnataka and Praja Vani "" in unison applauded this effort and saluted Tendulkar's brilliance, grit and determination. All the papers gave front page lead coverage to his efforts, along with the chronology of his career. Praja Vani headlined the front page story "Master Blaster breaks Little Master record" and supported it with a detailed match report on the sports page. This pattern was seen in the other two newspapers. Tons of statistics were produced and comparisons with Don Bradman, Gary Sobers, Brian Lara and Vivian Richards were extensively made on the sports pages. All were of the view that it will be quite some time before one will see a player and a person like Tendulkar in the game of cricket.
 
Almost all the Telugu newspapers, similarly, carried news of Tendulkar's record 35th test century on the front page capturing a photograph of the moment, with Tendulkar looking up at the sky. Andhra Jyothi carried the news on the front page titled, "King of centuries, Sachin the great". Vaartha carried an editorial the next day titled "Sachin reaches summit" that gave a description of the 32-year old batsman's march till the reckoning moment. It also carried a lead article on the sports page listing out Tendulkar 's top 10 centuries. Tamil daily Dinamalar devoted a lot of space over two days to Tendulkar's achievement. The daily also published the runs scored by him as a player and as a captain.

 
 

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First Published: Dec 16 2005 | 12:00 AM IST

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