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Sach
Super Exclusive book on Sachin Tendulkar (Little Master Blaster). This book contains 83 interviews by eminent personality on what Sachin means to them. Words by Greg Chappell, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and some other interesting aspects about Sachin life & cricket. Gary Kristen exposes how the Little Master prepares for each game.
- GenresNonfictionSports
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 10, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads # Cricket
Every occasionally, a cricketer stops being just a name in the scorecard and becomes a cultural memory. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is exactly that. His career is not merely 34,357 international runs and a hundred centuries; it is the texture of an entire generation’s growing up, the sound of radios crackling in small towns, and the emotion of a billion Indians who often found solace in his straight drive.
Naturally, the “Sachin bookshelf” is crowded. From serious biographies to fan anthologies, statistical juggernauts to devotional pamphlets, everyone has tried to capture the Tendulkar saga. Into this already noisy pavilion walks Gautam Bhattacharya’s *Sach*—a book that, while less discussed than some of the blockbusters, attempts to give Tendulkar’s life a shape through intimate storytelling and cultural commentary. But how does it compare to the canon—the *Playing It My Way* juggernaut, Gulu Ezekiel’s foundational *Sachin*, R. L. Fernandes’ provocative *Greater Than Bradman*, Devendra Prabhudesai’s *Hero*, Boria Majumdar’s glossy *Sachin @50*, and more niche gems like *Scintillating Sachin*?
The most obvious rival to *Sach* is, of course, Tendulkar’s own autobiography, *Playing It My Way*. Co-written with Boria Majumdar, this was a publishing sensation in 2014, breaking records for pre-orders and sales. Here was Sachin, finally speaking in first person—about Sharadashram school days, the sternness of coach Achrekar, the romance of his first date with Anjali, the pressures of captaincy, and the eventual swansong at Wankhede.
However *Playing It My Way* is also guarded, almost obsessively so. It never once feels like Sachin is willing to break open his shell and show us the wounds. The match-fixing era, for example, is treated with clinical detachment. Captaincy, reduced to a polite shrug. The autobiography, while valuable, sometimes reads like a polite post-match press conference: careful, rehearsed, unwilling to go rogue.
By contrast, Bhattacharya’s *Sach* doesn’t have to maintain the legend’s image. It can stand back, look at the man, and insert narrative texture. Where Sachin may understate, Bhattacharya can amplify; where Sachin sidesteps, Bhattacharya can probe. That is the strength of third-party biographers—they do not bat with the weight of diplomacy. And this is where *Sach* becomes interesting: it fills in the silences left by *Playing It My Way*.
If Tendulkar’s own book is a batsman’s straight bat, Bhattacharya’s is the commentator’s replay angle—spotting the small fidget at the crease, the extra twitch of nerves, the background noise of a billion hopes.
Sachin’s career was inevitably tied to Don Bradman. The story of the Don watching Tendulkar bat and seeing himself in him is apocryphal but culturally powerful. Enter R. L. Fernandes’ *Greater Than Bradman*—a work that attempts, with statistics, to prove Sachin’s superiority to Bradman. It’s a book that crunches averages, strike rates, opposition quality, match contexts. It is nerdy, argumentative, and occasionally provocative. For readers who see cricket as a data science, it’s intoxicating. But the risk? It flattens the emotional landscape of Tendulkar into a bar graph.
This is where Bhattacharya’s *Sach* offers a counterbalance. His writing thrives on anecdotes—Tendulkar shadow-practising his shots in the dressing room, Sachin’s refusal to back down after Waqar Younis bloodied his nose in his debut series, the emotional collapse after his father’s death during the 1999 World Cup. These stories remind us that Sachin’s greatness is not a matter of decimals but of resilience, nerves, and inspiration. While *Greater Than Bradman* is a boundary carved out of numbers, *Sach* is the same shot painted in watercolours. The former appeals to the head, the latter to the heart. And both, in their own ways, are valid.
Devendra Prabhudesai’s *Hero: A Biography of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar* is one of the most structured attempts to chart Tendulkar’s journey. Dividing his life into phases—Prodigy (1984–91), Peerless (1992–99), and Preceptor (2000–13)—the book brings cinematic neatness. It’s biography as screenplay. Prabhudesai is disciplined, providing context, statistics, interviews, and critical arcs. Bhattacharya’s *Sach*, however, is less formulaic. It has the feel of an impassioned fan-writer conversing with the reader. It does not box Sachin into phases as neatly as *Hero* does. Instead, it meanders, lingers, pauses, just like Sachin himself would between overs, tapping his bat, surveying the field. This stylistic difference matters. *Hero* is a safe reference book, easy for a student to quote in an essay. *Sach* is a fireside conversation, more evocative, less rigid. Both have their audience—one is a research library’s delight, the other a bedside companion.
At the other end of the spectrum is Boria Majumdar’s *Sachin @50*—a glossy coffee-table anthology released to mark Tendulkar’s 50th birthday. It’s a scrapbook of essays, tributes, photographs, and recollections from teammates, journalists, and fans. There is no attempt at critique, no risk of dissent. It is worship in hardcover. Compared to this, *Sach* feels refreshingly balanced. Bhattacharya adores Tendulkar, of course, but he does not surrender to uncritical fandom. He allows us to see Sachin as a human, occasionally flawed, sometimes vulnerable. That balance is crucial because Sachin himself is notoriously private. Without writers like Bhattacharya, the myth would overwhelm the man.
One of the most charming contributions to Sachin literature is Dwarkanath Sanzgiri’s *Scintillating Sachin*. Rooted in Mumbai anecdotes, this book shines light on Tendulkar’s formative years: the mischief of a schoolboy, the discipline of Achrekar’s nets, the inheritance of Gavaskar’s mantle. It is short (about 240 pages) but full of warmth. Bhattacharya’s *Sach* shares this intimacy but broadens the canvas. He does not restrict himself to Bombay but situates Sachin in the larger Indian cricket narrative—the turmoil of the 1990s, the burden of expectations, the shifts of power from Azharuddin to Ganguly to Dhoni. If *Scintillating Sachin* is a family album, *Sach* is a national documentary.
The ESPNcricinfo anthology *Sachin Tendulkar: The Man Cricket Loved Back* is a collection of essays by some of the finest cricket writers—Sambit Bal, Sharda Ugra, Sidharth Monga, among others. It captures the sheer multiplicity of perspectives: Sachin as a batsman, Sachin as a phenomenon, Sachin as a brand. But anthologies, by nature, lack a single narrative voice. Reading them is like sampling a buffet—satisfying, varied, but sometimes disjointed. *Sach*, by contrast, is a single voice steering the narrative. Bhattacharya curates, interprets, and weaves. The book has consistency, something anthologies rarely manage.
Some books attempt to break formula. Sumit Chakraberty’s *Master Laster: What They Don’t Tell You About Sachin Tendulkar* tries to strip away hero-worship and show the man as vulnerable, tactical, sometimes even ordinary. It’s deliberately iconoclastic, seeking to puncture the myth. Meanwhile, Devendra Prabhudesai’s *Winning Like Sachin* takes the corporate-inspirational route—a self-help book using Tendulkar’s qualities as lessons in success: patience, discipline, resilience. Compared to these, *Sach* sits comfortably in the middle. It is neither iconoclastic nor managerial. It is storytelling, plain and simple. It does not wish to dismantle or to sermonize; it only wishes to capture.
So why does Bhattacharya’s book matter, when the market already overflows with Tendulkar literature? Because of tone. *Playing It My Way* is insider’s access, but cautious. *Greater Than Bradman* is bold, but clinical. *Hero* is neat, but formal. *Sachin @50* is glossy, but worshipful. *Scintillating Sachin* is warm, but narrow. *Master Laster* is daring, but divisive. *Sach* manages to combine intimacy with critique, warmth with width. Bhattacharya writes as someone who has lived in the same cricketing ecosystem, who has watched Sachin not just as a superstar but as a boy-turned-icon. He balances admiration with observation.
When he describes the 1998 Sharjah Desert Storm innings, it’s not just about the 143 runs—it’s about the dust storm that felt biblical, the Pakistani spectators silenced, the Indian fans roaring, the sense that this was not cricket but theatre. This ability to turn a match into a metaphor is what makes *Sach* shine.
If you were to treat all these books as cricketers, here’s the playing XI: opening with *Playing It My Way* (straight bat) and Gulu Ezekiel’s *Sachin* (solid foundation); a middle order with *Hero* (technical elegance), *Greater Than Bradman* (aggressive stroke play), and *Sach* (the stylish No. 4, cover drive merchant); all-rounders in *Scintillating Sachin* (local roots) and *The Man Cricket Loved Back* (anthology flavour); finishers in *Sachin @50* (glossy fireworks) and *Winning Like Sachin* (corporate inspiration); and wild card innovation in *Master Laster* (iconoclast, reverse sweeps).
In this team, Bhattacharya’s *Sach* bats at the crucial No. 4 spot—not because it is the biggest seller or the most official, but because it feels the most balanced, the most literary, the most heartfelt. It is not Tendulkar’s own voice, but it might be closer to how we, the fans, experienced him. If Tendulkar himself is the God of Cricket, *Sach* is the temple bell we ring when we remember his innings.
To read Gautam Bhattacharya’s *Sach* is to remember that cricket writing is not just about facts or worship, but about texture. It is about capturing how Sachin was not just a batsman but a mood. When he walked in at Sharjah, we held our breath.
When he got out early at Eden, the stadium groaned like a funeral. When he raised his bat after his 100th hundred, India exhaled. Other books record the runs. *Sach* remembers the silences, the pauses, the goosebumps. And in the final analysis, that is the difference between a scorecard and a story.
Every occasionally, a cricketer stops being just a name in the scorecard and becomes a cultural memory. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is exactly that. His career is not merely 34,357 international runs and a hundred centuries; it is the texture of an entire generation’s growing up, the sound of radios crackling in small towns, and the emotion of a billion Indians who often found solace in his straight drive.
Naturally, the “Sachin bookshelf” is crowded. From serious biographies to fan anthologies, statistical juggernauts to devotional pamphlets, everyone has tried to capture the Tendulkar saga. Into this already noisy pavilion walks Gautam Bhattacharya’s *Sach*—a book that, while less discussed than some of the blockbusters, attempts to give Tendulkar’s life a shape through intimate storytelling and cultural commentary. But how does it compare to the canon—the *Playing It My Way* juggernaut, Gulu Ezekiel’s foundational *Sachin*, R. L. Fernandes’ provocative *Greater Than Bradman*, Devendra Prabhudesai’s *Hero*, Boria Majumdar’s glossy *Sachin @50*, and more niche gems like *Scintillating Sachin*?
The most obvious rival to *Sach* is, of course, Tendulkar’s own autobiography, *Playing It My Way*. Co-written with Boria Majumdar, this was a publishing sensation in 2014, breaking records for pre-orders and sales. Here was Sachin, finally speaking in first person—about Sharadashram school days, the sternness of coach Achrekar, the romance of his first date with Anjali, the pressures of captaincy, and the eventual swansong at Wankhede.
However *Playing It My Way* is also guarded, almost obsessively so. It never once feels like Sachin is willing to break open his shell and show us the wounds. The match-fixing era, for example, is treated with clinical detachment. Captaincy, reduced to a polite shrug. The autobiography, while valuable, sometimes reads like a polite post-match press conference: careful, rehearsed, unwilling to go rogue.
By contrast, Bhattacharya’s *Sach* doesn’t have to maintain the legend’s image. It can stand back, look at the man, and insert narrative texture. Where Sachin may understate, Bhattacharya can amplify; where Sachin sidesteps, Bhattacharya can probe. That is the strength of third-party biographers—they do not bat with the weight of diplomacy. And this is where *Sach* becomes interesting: it fills in the silences left by *Playing It My Way*.
If Tendulkar’s own book is a batsman’s straight bat, Bhattacharya’s is the commentator’s replay angle—spotting the small fidget at the crease, the extra twitch of nerves, the background noise of a billion hopes.
Sachin’s career was inevitably tied to Don Bradman. The story of the Don watching Tendulkar bat and seeing himself in him is apocryphal but culturally powerful. Enter R. L. Fernandes’ *Greater Than Bradman*—a work that attempts, with statistics, to prove Sachin’s superiority to Bradman. It’s a book that crunches averages, strike rates, opposition quality, match contexts. It is nerdy, argumentative, and occasionally provocative. For readers who see cricket as a data science, it’s intoxicating. But the risk? It flattens the emotional landscape of Tendulkar into a bar graph.
This is where Bhattacharya’s *Sach* offers a counterbalance. His writing thrives on anecdotes—Tendulkar shadow-practising his shots in the dressing room, Sachin’s refusal to back down after Waqar Younis bloodied his nose in his debut series, the emotional collapse after his father’s death during the 1999 World Cup. These stories remind us that Sachin’s greatness is not a matter of decimals but of resilience, nerves, and inspiration. While *Greater Than Bradman* is a boundary carved out of numbers, *Sach* is the same shot painted in watercolours. The former appeals to the head, the latter to the heart. And both, in their own ways, are valid.
Devendra Prabhudesai’s *Hero: A Biography of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar* is one of the most structured attempts to chart Tendulkar’s journey. Dividing his life into phases—Prodigy (1984–91), Peerless (1992–99), and Preceptor (2000–13)—the book brings cinematic neatness. It’s biography as screenplay. Prabhudesai is disciplined, providing context, statistics, interviews, and critical arcs. Bhattacharya’s *Sach*, however, is less formulaic. It has the feel of an impassioned fan-writer conversing with the reader. It does not box Sachin into phases as neatly as *Hero* does. Instead, it meanders, lingers, pauses, just like Sachin himself would between overs, tapping his bat, surveying the field. This stylistic difference matters. *Hero* is a safe reference book, easy for a student to quote in an essay. *Sach* is a fireside conversation, more evocative, less rigid. Both have their audience—one is a research library’s delight, the other a bedside companion.
At the other end of the spectrum is Boria Majumdar’s *Sachin @50*—a glossy coffee-table anthology released to mark Tendulkar’s 50th birthday. It’s a scrapbook of essays, tributes, photographs, and recollections from teammates, journalists, and fans. There is no attempt at critique, no risk of dissent. It is worship in hardcover. Compared to this, *Sach* feels refreshingly balanced. Bhattacharya adores Tendulkar, of course, but he does not surrender to uncritical fandom. He allows us to see Sachin as a human, occasionally flawed, sometimes vulnerable. That balance is crucial because Sachin himself is notoriously private. Without writers like Bhattacharya, the myth would overwhelm the man.
One of the most charming contributions to Sachin literature is Dwarkanath Sanzgiri’s *Scintillating Sachin*. Rooted in Mumbai anecdotes, this book shines light on Tendulkar’s formative years: the mischief of a schoolboy, the discipline of Achrekar’s nets, the inheritance of Gavaskar’s mantle. It is short (about 240 pages) but full of warmth. Bhattacharya’s *Sach* shares this intimacy but broadens the canvas. He does not restrict himself to Bombay but situates Sachin in the larger Indian cricket narrative—the turmoil of the 1990s, the burden of expectations, the shifts of power from Azharuddin to Ganguly to Dhoni. If *Scintillating Sachin* is a family album, *Sach* is a national documentary.
The ESPNcricinfo anthology *Sachin Tendulkar: The Man Cricket Loved Back* is a collection of essays by some of the finest cricket writers—Sambit Bal, Sharda Ugra, Sidharth Monga, among others. It captures the sheer multiplicity of perspectives: Sachin as a batsman, Sachin as a phenomenon, Sachin as a brand. But anthologies, by nature, lack a single narrative voice. Reading them is like sampling a buffet—satisfying, varied, but sometimes disjointed. *Sach*, by contrast, is a single voice steering the narrative. Bhattacharya curates, interprets, and weaves. The book has consistency, something anthologies rarely manage.
Some books attempt to break formula. Sumit Chakraberty’s *Master Laster: What They Don’t Tell You About Sachin Tendulkar* tries to strip away hero-worship and show the man as vulnerable, tactical, sometimes even ordinary. It’s deliberately iconoclastic, seeking to puncture the myth. Meanwhile, Devendra Prabhudesai’s *Winning Like Sachin* takes the corporate-inspirational route—a self-help book using Tendulkar’s qualities as lessons in success: patience, discipline, resilience. Compared to these, *Sach* sits comfortably in the middle. It is neither iconoclastic nor managerial. It is storytelling, plain and simple. It does not wish to dismantle or to sermonize; it only wishes to capture.
So why does Bhattacharya’s book matter, when the market already overflows with Tendulkar literature? Because of tone. *Playing It My Way* is insider’s access, but cautious. *Greater Than Bradman* is bold, but clinical. *Hero* is neat, but formal. *Sachin @50* is glossy, but worshipful. *Scintillating Sachin* is warm, but narrow. *Master Laster* is daring, but divisive. *Sach* manages to combine intimacy with critique, warmth with width. Bhattacharya writes as someone who has lived in the same cricketing ecosystem, who has watched Sachin not just as a superstar but as a boy-turned-icon. He balances admiration with observation.
When he describes the 1998 Sharjah Desert Storm innings, it’s not just about the 143 runs—it’s about the dust storm that felt biblical, the Pakistani spectators silenced, the Indian fans roaring, the sense that this was not cricket but theatre. This ability to turn a match into a metaphor is what makes *Sach* shine.
If you were to treat all these books as cricketers, here’s the playing XI: opening with *Playing It My Way* (straight bat) and Gulu Ezekiel’s *Sachin* (solid foundation); a middle order with *Hero* (technical elegance), *Greater Than Bradman* (aggressive stroke play), and *Sach* (the stylish No. 4, cover drive merchant); all-rounders in *Scintillating Sachin* (local roots) and *The Man Cricket Loved Back* (anthology flavour); finishers in *Sachin @50* (glossy fireworks) and *Winning Like Sachin* (corporate inspiration); and wild card innovation in *Master Laster* (iconoclast, reverse sweeps).
In this team, Bhattacharya’s *Sach* bats at the crucial No. 4 spot—not because it is the biggest seller or the most official, but because it feels the most balanced, the most literary, the most heartfelt. It is not Tendulkar’s own voice, but it might be closer to how we, the fans, experienced him. If Tendulkar himself is the God of Cricket, *Sach* is the temple bell we ring when we remember his innings.
To read Gautam Bhattacharya’s *Sach* is to remember that cricket writing is not just about facts or worship, but about texture. It is about capturing how Sachin was not just a batsman but a mood. When he walked in at Sharjah, we held our breath.
When he got out early at Eden, the stadium groaned like a funeral. When he raised his bat after his 100th hundred, India exhaled. Other books record the runs. *Sach* remembers the silences, the pauses, the goosebumps. And in the final analysis, that is the difference between a scorecard and a story.
June 1, 2012
If there was an option to give it zero stars, I would. Without doubt, the worst book I've read, ever!
During the lead up to the world cup, several books came out about Sachin Tendulkar. In fact, flipkart.com created a separate genre in his name. This seemed to be yet another that jumped on the bandwagon.
But I bought it. Because it promised an autograph on the first page. Only much later did I find out it was the author's autograph.
To even get an opportunity to write about the incredible journey of a child prodigy (with temperament, talent and maturity that belied his age) and how he goes on to become the greatest modern batsman the world has seen, is a blessing by itself. The author goes on to abuse that privilege by writing it like an article in a hindi gossip magazine. I cannot emphasize my disappointment enough. I'll stop before this review gets any worse.
During the lead up to the world cup, several books came out about Sachin Tendulkar. In fact, flipkart.com created a separate genre in his name. This seemed to be yet another that jumped on the bandwagon.
But I bought it. Because it promised an autograph on the first page. Only much later did I find out it was the author's autograph.
To even get an opportunity to write about the incredible journey of a child prodigy (with temperament, talent and maturity that belied his age) and how he goes on to become the greatest modern batsman the world has seen, is a blessing by itself. The author goes on to abuse that privilege by writing it like an article in a hindi gossip magazine. I cannot emphasize my disappointment enough. I'll stop before this review gets any worse.
August 27, 2014
Impressive book, a delight for all Sachin fans. It has a lot of unheard incidents from Sachin's life. The book covers everything from his childhood days of Sharadashram Vidyamandir to his stint as captain and much more. You may find it lengthy but a must read for all Sachin fans.
October 25, 2013
Any book on Sachin Tendulkar is always good read and an inspiration. Author can't do too bad job on this subject
May 19, 2015
The best book on Sachin, even better than the autobiography.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews