His spectacular pyrotechnics, along with Rahul Dravid's brilliant century, drowned Kenya in front of a wildly cheering and inebriated crowd. The spectators, mostly Indians and Kenyans of Indian origin, partook of the liquid right through the day.

They drunk on the supreme batsmanship of a master craftsman in the morning before settling for more earthy things in the afternoon to return home totally satiated. They had seen the Don of a new era in full flight take India to a win in style. The world record partnership between Tendulkar and Dravid (237 unbeaten runs beating the previous best of 207 between Steve and Mark Waugh,also against Kenya at Vishakapatnam in 1996) and India's highest ever One-Day total was just the icing on the cake.

Tendulkar was fantastic. He batted like a man possessed. He might as well have been a cricketing Rambo. Such was his single-minded assault on the Kenya bowlers this morning. He used the bat to play shots of such variety and with such frequency that the ball came off the willow with the rapidity of the ack-ack of machine-gun fire.

His partner Dravid played above himself to notch up a 109-ball innings of 104. But he was always in the shade against this giant of a cricketer.

Admittedly the bowling and the fielding were short of world class. Still Tendulkar's batting was truly mindboggling. The thrilling, yet frightening apprehension to any connoisseur is the levels he could take batting to if he played above himself! Even the gods would weep with joy that day!

It is inevitable that this match report should be so full of Tendulkar. Today he strode the arena and dominated this match like acolossus. Everything else simply dwarfed into insignificance.

Dravid was superb while Kennedy Otieno and Steve Tikolo refused to be overawed by the situation and batted with grit and flair. Debashish Mohanty playing in place of an injured Venkatesh Prasad (stiff neck and cold shoulder) also bowled well. But the story of the day was Tendulkar.

From responding to the team's SOS and rushing to Bristol immediately after the funeral of his father, to coming up with this fairytale innings, there was something eerie about his response. This morning, India were devastated to learn that two of their main bowlers, Anil Kumble and Venkatesh Prasad would not be able to play because of niggling injuries. (Kumble had a strained calf muscle). Their places in the eleven went to Nikhil Chopra and Mohanty. Tendulkar came in place of Robin Singh. Ajit Agarkar, who was initially left out of the team was retained owing to Prasad's injury.

SCOREBOARD

KENYA WON THE TOSS AND PUT INDIA IN TO BAT FIRST

INDIA

SRamesh run out (Tikolo) 44
Saurav Ganguly lbw b Suji 13
Rahul Dravid not out 104
Sachin Tendulkar not out 140
Extras (lb 5, w 21, nb 2): 28
Total (for two in 50 overs): 329
Fall of wickets: 1-50 (Ganguly, 10.4 overs), 2-92 (Ramesh, 20.5).
Bowling: M Suji 10-2-26-1; Angara 7-0-66-0; Odoyo 9-0-59-0; Tikolo 9-1-62-0; Karim 7-0-52-0; Odumbe 8-0-59-0

KENYA

K Otieno c Agarkar b Chopra 56
R Shah c sub b Mohanty 9
S Gupta lbw b Mohanty 0
S Tikolo lbw b Mohanty 58
M Odumbe c sub b Mohanty 14
T Odoyo b Agarkar 39
Asif Karim b Srinath 8
A Vadher not out 6
M Suji not out 1
Extras (lb10, w31, nb3): 44
Total (for 7 wkts, 50 overs): 235
Fall of wickets: 1-29 (Shah), 2-29 (Gupta), 3-147 (Otieno), 4-165 (Tikolo), 5-193 (Odumbe), 6-209 (Karim), 7-233 (Odoyo).
Bowling: Srinath 10-3-31-1, Agarkar 10-0-35-1, Mohanty 10-56-4, Ganguly 9-0-47-0, Chopra 10-2-33-1, Tendulkar 1-0-23-0.

Result: India win by 94runs.

Man of the match: Sachin Tendulkar