The man who inaugurated the age which bears his name is set to formally bring it to an end himself. Players who were part of this golden period made their debut after Tendulkar did and quit or faded away while the great man was still playing.

Twenty four years ago this week, everybody predicted big things for Sachin. No one, however, could even conceive of either 200 Test matches or 100 international centuries then. Sachin extended the limits of the possible not just on the field, but in our minds as well.

u00a0The last 40-year-old to play for India was the great all rounder Vinoo Mankad. The oldest was Amir Elahi who played for both India and Pakistan, and was 44 when he played his sixth and final Test. C K Nayudu was nearly 37 when he led India in their inaugural Test match.

He wasn’t the first 40-year-old to play for India, though. That honour, if indeed it was an honour, belonged to Rustomji Jamshedji, a left arm spinner whose only Test was the first on Indian soil; he had blown out 41 candles on his birthday cake a month earlier.

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