Sachin: How a teenager with a soft, uncertain voice would become a shrill player at the practice field

I was making a documentary for BBC TV - Dream Before Wicket, as part of a 1994 series on nationalism and sport - and my sound recordist was going quietly crazy..

After a while we moved away from the fielding practice to the nets, where the most elegant India batsman since Salim Durrani and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi was taking guard..

Manjrekar ended his session devouring some spin, dancing down the pitch to put them away to all parts of the ground, almost always along the ground, the ball mowing the grass as it went..

The scrape of the bowler's delivery stride, the whirl of the arm against the shirt, the soft thump of the ball landing and then..

And anything played on the off-side was too close for our cameraman's liking, sometimes the ball almost tearing through the net even after bouncing..