Let this be the start of many more

{MORE THAN A STATUE} SACHIN TENDULKAR AT WANKHEDE STADIUM

- Dhiman Sarkar

Not far from where he played his first and final Tests and won the World Cup, a short walk from where he spoke of his life between 22 yards for 24 years...uniting stadium, sub-continent and beyond in tears of gratitude, will Sachin Tendulkar be immortalised.

Right foot forward, left back in the crease, a slight pivot of the hips to raise the bat following through what looks like a lofted cover drive - "for six," the sculptor Pramod Kamble tells ANI in a video interview - the statue will be unveiled at Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday, one day before it hosts the India and Sri Lanka.

"The sort of people who would have been statue subjects, such as politicians and people of the church and royalty are less popular now," said Dr Chris Stride, a statistician at Sheffield University which created a database of statues of sportspersons in 2011, in a BBC report. For the tennis writer Steve Tignor, statues create an aura around a legend. "Just like good sportswriting, they turn the mundane into something religious," he has written.

Shane Warne frozen in delivery stride, excitement in his eyes which lock on the batter who is about to look silly, near Melbourne Cricket Ground is a good example of that. It explains why after Warne's sudden death, a glass of beer and a packet of cigarettes was left for a man who described himself as, "I smoked. I drank, and bowled a bit of legspin."