IPL’s best moments: April 4, 2013 – ‘Pondulkar’ open for Mumbai Indians

As the UAE prepares to host the opening 20 matches of this season’s Indian Premier League, The National is looking back at 16 memorable moments from the first six stagings of the competition.

Nearly 62,000 international runs and 171 international hundreds and here they were, two of cricket’s greatest batsmen, coming out to open an innings in a Twenty20 match. It was a surreal but compelling moment watching the two bat together: two such different styles of batting, two such different approaches but two such great players.

Ponting had already retired and Tendulkar was a few months from doing so, a combined age of 78 at the time. Neither had ever really set the format on fire but still it was impossible to take your eyes off them. For one, by their very presence together, they provided a sense of gravitas to the occasion. This was genuinely something the commentators could justify hyping up.

In many ways it was what the IPL stood for, to bring together the world’s greatest players, in partnership or opposition.

More gold shone on the occasion when Muttiah Muralitharan came on to bowl the innings fifth over. Tendulkar-Ponting-Murali? Even if it was for just the one over, this was a dream for the league’s marketing team. Tendulkar took charge, smacking a straight drive for four and then clipping the next ball to midwicket for another.

But maybe it would have been better had “Pondulkar”, as they became known, happened a decade earlier, when they were in their prime. They put on 52, but it was at a sedate and underwhelming pace, and it ended with a whimper, a run-out – of all dismissals – a little miscommunication between two greats.

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