Sachin Tendulkar enthralled fans and rivals alike over a magical career Tributes have poured in for Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who announced his retirement from Test cricket. Sachin Tendulker is rivaled only by Sir Donald Bradman. IT takes a powerful force to entice an Australian cricketer to flirt with a vampire. But it happened on the 1998 tour of India where Sachin Tendulkar was in such rampaging form that, to the men he was crushing, he became not so much a batsman with a blade but a magician with a wand. Fear turned to fascination and the Australians wanted one of those wands. At least half of the members of the Test team against whom Tendulkar averaged 111 that tour bought versions of Tendulkar's famous Vampire bats, the ultra-heavy blades (only Lance Klusener used heavier) that seemed like fence palings in the hands of some but which Tendulkar wielded like a band conductor's baton. The Australians brought the bats home and several were sent to local bat companies who copied them. But they soon found out what was good for Sachin was good for almost him alone. Many batsmen could not lift them. Stories like that enhanced the legend of the Indian great, who will retire after his 200th Test next month as a man of many parts including ... Sachin Tendulkar shows off his silky skills against Australia. THE ENIGMA Millions adored him. Thousands chased him at airports. Barely anyone really knew him. In an internet age which stripped back the layers of most of sport's greatest personalities, Tendulkar remained cricket's greatest international man of mystery. On his last tour of Australia he stayed over two months without giving one press conference. He famously once put on a false beard in Mumbai to attend a local picture theatre and his luxury apartment has a "Batcave" exit which he often used when he took his red Ferrari out for a spin after midnight. As a madhouse world swirled around him, Tendulkar remained a beacon. He once said to Indian coach Greg Chappell "you would have more close friends in India that I have." THE POLITICIAN Like many of life's most influential men, Tendulkar was rarely heard in public - but his soft voice moved mountains. India rejected the Decision Review System specifically because Tendulkar did not want it. When off-spinner Harbhajan Singh was facing a ban for his role in the Monkeygate affair against Australia, Tendulkar sent a blunt text to home officials saying "Harbhajan is innocent. In this hour of crisis, the board should stand by him. I suggest we should play in Perth only if the ban is lifted. No other cricketer in the world talks to his boss like that. Those three simple sentences said so much about the combative, political inner man we never saw in front of a microphone and who announced his retirement by letter. The Australian team involved in Monkeygate never quite forgave Tendulkar for changing his story and defending Harbhajan. The Australians also noted how when India lost he occasionally would not emerge for a handshake. Tendulkar never made rash public statements or gave us any hint of the man behind the mask; his pleasures and his fears were all kept away from public view. His career-ending autobiography will be fascinating - will he drop his guard? One of life's quirks is that people are often attracted to opposites which may explain why his lifelong hero was John McEnroe, the anti-Sachin, the villain bold enough to let his kettle lid pop off in front of the world in a way Tendulkar could never contemplate. As a boy Sachin even grew his hair and donned a hairband to honour his hero. THE RECORD MAKER No batsman will better Tendulkar's mark of 200 Tests. Not with Twenty20 cricket squeezing schedules. Even with a clear run it would be Mt Everest with the world's tallest building on top. Tendulkar started Test cricket at 16 and will finished at 40. How do you beat that? Incredibly, India's selectors felt he was ready for Test cricket at age 14 but thought to pick him would have been an act of sheer brazenness. When they chose him at 16 and he excelled, it confirmed to them he could have taken the plunge at 14. Extraordinary. The aura he cast was so all-pervading that former Indian coach John Wright once said newcomers to the Indian dressingroom would spend their first three weeks just watching Sachin. Andrew Symonds and Sachin Tendulkar exchange words. THE MORAL If Tendulkar's batting gifts were God-given, the oven in which they were baked was man-made. Sometimes he would play three games of cricket a day in India, racing across Mumbai on the back of his coach's scooter and finishing with a net session in which his coach would put a one rupee coin on the stumps and give it to any bowler who knocked it off. Tendulkar still has 13 coins at home which were rewards for net sessions in which he remained undefeated. THE PLAYERS" PLAYER Tendulkar owns a restaurant in Mumbai which has many pieces of sporting memorabilia on the walls. But one always catches the eye. It's an Australian one-day shirt which Andrew Symonds gave to Tendulkar before tension between them rose with the Monkeygate affair. It is signed by Symonds who left the simple message: "To Sachin, the man we all want to be."