There are a lot of people who are blessed with a lot of talent but somehow they find out a way of not going the distance. The point is not having the talent but what you do with it that makes all the difference and Sachin Tendulkar was one such guy who maximised his potential and talent to the extent possible.

Born in a midddle class family, Sachin Tendulkar was destined to play cricket just like William Shakespeare was consecrated to write. The little man never looked out of place even at the age of sixteen when he made his Test debut and always gave the feeling that he belonged to the big stage.

The thing which separated Tendulkar from the rest of the guys is his passion for the game which kept him going for the next 24 years when everybody else with whom he had once shared a dressing room had called it a day. When a player has such passion then working hard at the nets and trying to improve your game becomes more fun and challenging than a job which is monotonous and needs to be done just for the sake of doing it.

While there were a lot of other guys who were blessed with the same kind of talent, they never achieved the same feat or dominance as the little master did which had a lot do with his attitude also which came to him naturally from a very young age.

At the age of eleven Sachin used to get up in the morning, practice for a couple of hours and then play a match after which he would again hit the nets. After such a hectic schedule, he got into a habit of sleeping on the dining table. This went on for about 55 days which tells you the kind of attitude he had towards the game from a very young age, somebody who just wanted to play irrespective of what is going around the world.

Success has many relatives which Tendulkar must be aware off but what set him apart from a lot of other guys is the kind of focus he had and his feet was always grounded even after holding every other batting record in the history of cricket.

Such is sports that when a great athlete departs somebody else takes his place just like when Sunil Gavaskar retired from cricket Sachin Tendulkar took his place and ruled for more than two decades. Tomorrow somebody else will come and take his place and the game will move on but his legacy would be there in the Indian dressing for years to come.

Sachin Tendulkar refused to rest honorably on his laurels even when he reached retirement age a couple of years back, makes him a little more great than what people think him to be.