“With over 33,000 runs in international cricket, Test and ODI, the greatest batsman of the modern era - please welcome Sachin Tendulkar!”

One section of the crowd had been perusing the morning papers, another pulling out tubes of sunblock from voluminous bags, while others had contemplated the cricket. The youngest among the gathering were running about chasing sponge balls or lining up for free samples of chocolate milk.

All of them paused, and stood up to welcome the chunky, diffident looking bloke emerging from deep within the Don Bradman stand to play his first innings on his fifth and (almost certainly) final tour of Australia.

Tendulkar got off the mark by cutting Maxwell behind point for two. The next ball, he leaned forward and drove smoothly against the turn to send the ball scudding into a boundary hoarding advertising a rival to the brand of compact cameras he endorses.

All morning, the bowlers had served up half volleys. Gambhir had played a series of cover drives off Jake Haberfield. Against left-armer Josh Lalor, Rahul Dravid had played cat and mouse with mid off, sometimes driving to his left and sometimes to his right, but never close enough to stop the boundary. It was now Tendulkar’s turn. One of the most interesting aspects of his game is how he often seems to come out with one or two strokes to keep playing, with minor variations each time in where he meets the ball and with what kind of bat-swing.

Stroke play options

Against a modest Chairman’s XI attack and on a surface designed for expansive strokeplay, Tendulkar kept exploring the squarish cover drive and the late-ish cut or dab through gully. Later in the day, leg spinner Cameron Boyce spoke with a measure of reverence in his voice about how bowling to the likes of Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and Rohit Sharma was different from anything he’d done before.

“It’s just their hands. They play a lot later,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been hit behind backward point as much as today. Their footwork as well, the way they get down the pitch.”

After Boyce had dismissed Dravid - caught at mid on trying uncharacteristically to clear that fielder - he was milked with great relish by Tendulkar and Laxman throughout the post-lunch session. Lengths that most Shield batsmen would defend were treated sardonically, converted into long-hops by a giant backwards leap, completed almost before release, or into half-volleys by a series of fleet-footed skips down the wicket.

At tea, Tendulkar was on 92 and Laxman on 57. Twenty minutes later, the fans gathered at the Bradman stand rushed towards the exit of the players’ tunnel to once again catch a glimpse of Tendulkar and Laxman at close quarters, only to see Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma emerge instead.

Saving up for the big test

Twice out in the nineties in pursuit of his 100th international century, Tendulkar might have pondered between getting a practice hundred to sort of break the jinx and retiring to the dressing room to save up his quota for the Tests ahead. With the latter course chosen, the crowd were left to see two young men in the race to occupy the number six Test slot. Kohli, the incumbent, lasted just five balls, however, all off Boyce, popping the last of them straight back at the bowler.

Rohit remained at the crease till bad light brought proceedings to an end, and played a number of crowd-pleasing strokes, including languid straight hits for four over the heads of Maxwell and Boyce and a straight six off part-timer Joe Burns. Little, however, can be extrapolated from this little chapter in the Rohit-Kohli rivalry. One spent too little time at the wicket, and the other made easy runs exclusively against spin and part-timers on a flat wicket.

The next couple of weeks, however, should be intriguing.