Was it only a year ago that Sachin Tendulkar was thanking everybody and causing a nation to blubber in front of their television sets? Somehow, that seems farther off to me than the day he made his Test debut in Pakistan a quarter century ago. I was younger then, of course, but not as young as Sachin, who was 16 and taking on the likes of Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis (also making his debut) and Abdul Qadir.