Black Country crowds bowled over as Sachin Tendulkar signs book
He's known as the 'God of cricket' amongst his die-hard fans.
So it's perhaps no surprise that hundreds of them turned up to worship their hero Sachin Tendulkar when he came to the Black Country to sign copies of his new book.
More than 550 braved torrential rain to come face to face with the legendary Indian sportsman in the flesh at Tesco in West Bromwich.
He arrived amid tight security to be greeted with a sea of smartphones as his devotees clamoured to get pictures of him.
And the down-to-earth star was only too happy to oblige - posing for dozens of selfies with the delighted crowd.
The 41-year-old, who retired almost exactly a year ago, was signing copies of his autobiography Playing It My Way, which has broken all sales records for its Indian publisher.
Among his overjoyed fans was rising Wolverhampton batsman 18-year-old Raman Jaspal, of Penn, who plays for Worcestershire County Cricket club's junior side. He admited he froze when he came face to face with his hero.
Raman, a pharmacy student at the University of Wolverhampton, has also played for the city's junior X1.
He said: "When he signed my copy I really didn't know what to say. I froze, but he said 'thanks for buying my book'. It all happened so fast before I knew what was happening I had to move along.
"I had thought of what I would say, but I couldn't think of anything when the time came.
"I wouldn't have missed this for anything. It's very important to me."
Anil Patel, aged 44, and Kish Lad, 54, both of Walsall, whipped out their camera phones to get Tendulkar's photograph. They revealed they once met and chatted with the former batsman when they travelled to South Africa for the 2003 cricket World Cup.
Mr Patel, a bank worker, said: "He didn't say anything to us this time though because there were so many people here for the book signing.
"It was all over in a flash. We saw him in Durban outside the team's hotel and he was very pleasant to us."
After the signing the cricketer went on an impromptu walkabout for about two minutes in the store during which delighted fans rushed to greet and touch him despite a heavy security presence at the event.
Shouts of 'Sachin, Sachin' echoed around the aisles.
A spokeswoman for his UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton said: "We have had lots of excited people come in.
"So excited in fact some of them forgot to pick up their book once Sachin had sign it. So we were chasing after quite a few of them to give it to them."
The 41-year-old is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time and is mobbed by everywhere he goes around the world.
He took up cricket at the age of 11 and made his test debut against Pakistan at 16 going on to represent Mumbai at home and played for India for about 24 years. Tendulkar is the only player to have scored 100 international centuries, the first batsman to score a double century in a one day International, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket.
