Sachin Tendulkar - the Little Master at 40 - Telegraph Tendulkar resisted pressure to retire during the Test series defeat to England before Christmas but it has only delayed the inevitable and at some stage Indian cricket will have to turn to the new generation to replace a man who has been at the centre of Indian sporting culture for nearly 25 years. "I don't think you should look to replace him, it will be impossible," said Rahul Dravid, the man who has scored more runs with Tendulkar than anyone else. There is a lot of talent there and they have to become who they want to be. When Sunil Gavaskar retired people said where would the next Sunil Gavaskar come from but then we had Sachin Tendulkar come through. For a whole generation of people it is going to be strange because they have grown up with Sachin but it is inevitable. It will happen. People move on. It is life. Cricket will go on. It is bigger than any individual. The greats have played before him and will continue to play after him. Tendulkar has close ties to England with a home in St John's Wood close to Lord's, where he can be often seen in the summer months netting at the MCC's Indoor School with his son, Arjun. His first Test century was scored in England at Old Trafford in 1990 when he was 17 years-old, an innings that announced him to British audiences. But In India he had been groomed for several years as an international player. "The first time I saw him bat was at the Brabourne Stadium [Mumbai] and I was asked to bowl at him," recalls Kapil Dev. I was told he would get encouragement from it. I said 'who is he?' and was told he had done well in school cricket and to just bowl a few balls. He looked like a 14 year-old. He played with decent balance and I was very nervous to bowl to him. He was too young for me to bowl to him. I bowled a couple of quick ones. He flicked them off and in the net you could see he looked good at that age. His ability was there but could not dream this young boy would be one of the finest cricketers to walk this earth. Kapil, captain of India's World Cup winning team in 1983, was told to look after the young Tendulkar on that first tour to England, rooming with him, and watched as he combined batting with school work and realised his ambidextrous skills were the beginning of a new era in cricket. He did with the left hand, writing, eating. But batting, bowling was with right hand," said Kapil. Later on I realised he must be a genius who has power in both hands. That is the future of cricket. If you can have evenly balanced power you can control the ball and balance of your body. "Two thing were very different about him at that age," he added. His balance was so good. Unbelievable. And he did not hit the ball. He pushed the ball. He had a heavy bat. During that period I had never seen someone using that heavy bat and he held the bat low down. He was very quiet. On that first tour he was carrying his school books to study in tenth grade. He was shy, did not talk too much and he was just a normal kid. He did not involve himself in topics. He used to observe. Asked to judge his greatest innings, Sourav Ganguly and Gavaskar agree it was his 114 against Australia at Perth in 1992. India were heavily beaten but Tendulkar made 114 on a typically rock hard, bouncy Waca pitch, conditions completely alien to the sub-continent, and against Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes. "That is still the best," said Ganguly. He was a young boy, about 18. It was a bouncy Perth pitch. We were hammered in that series but he smashed McDermott and Hughes on a quick Waca pitch. We go to Australia quite a lot now and get used to those pitches but in those days we went once every six years and it was even harder to get used to the pace and bounce. You can hear more on Sachin at 40, a special on BBC Radio 5 live sport tonight from 10pm.