Bradman museum to erect Tendulkar statue

The authorities of the Bradman Museum in Bowral are planning to build a statue of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar alongside Aussie legend, Sir Don Bradman.

The great Australian had once said that Tendulkar bats like him and so the authorities felt that the Indian is the only candidate who can have a statue besides the Aussie great.

To execute the plan, the museum authorities have been repeatedly requesting Tendulkar to visit Bowral -- the city where Bradman was brought up and learnt his cricket since the age of four. But the maestro is believed to have refused the invitation saying, it's not possible during this tour and he has to come to this part of the world at another time.

Though the legendary Aussie batsman was born in Cootamundra, which is a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Bowral, he is known as the Boy from Bowral because he spent most of his time there.

The Aussie legend used to practise by throwing a golf ball at a water tank in Bowral. Sir Don once revealed that he worked on his concentration and timing by doing that. On entering the museum, a visitor is also allowed to practise with a stick by throwing a golf ball against a makeshift water tank.

Walking around the village, one will get to see two houses where he used to live and a beautiful picture of a cricket ground which is called the Bradman Oval. The cricket museum along with hall of fame -- which was inaugurated last year by Sunil Gavaskar -- cannot be missed either.

Sachin Tendulkar's wax replica inaugurated in Mumbai

A Tendulkar statue was inaugurated on Tuesday at the new state-of-art gallery, an initiative by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Sahara.

However, this wasn’t an easy task for sculptor Susanta Ray.

When he was told to make a wax statue of Sachin Tendulkar for the newly-inaugurated World Cup Cricket Gallery at Shahaji Raje Krida Sankul, Andheri Sports Complex, he didn’t give up.

Unlike Madame Tussaud’s team, he didn’t get the exact measurements of Tendulkar’s body to work on the replica. He had to depend on Internet, through which he developed a rough idea before heading on with the task.

“It was difficult since I didn’t have the measurements. I’ve never met him. I relied on the Internet and other stuff to bring this to life,” Ray was quoted in DNA.

When one looks at the replica, it looks as much as the original, a bat in a hand and a helmet in the other.

All this doesn’t stop him from making more replicas of Tendulkar. Ray says that he will present the Master Blaster after he scores his 100th ton.

“I hope he does it soon. I want to gift it to him as soon as he achieves the milestone,” Ray said as he stood at one side watching visitors admire his hard work.

Previously he had made sculptures of Sourav Ganguly, Ronaldinho and Rabindranath Tagore. He has even presented Diego Maradona a replica of the legend himself, when he had visited Kolkata.

“It looks so real. Susanta has done a good job. It is better than the one at Madame Tussauds,” Aditya Thackeray, the chief of Yuva Sena and the son of Uddhav Thackeray, who was looking after the construction of the art gallery.