Shivaji Park

This guide to Shivaji Park in Mumbai follows a failed batting tryout that turned around when the boy's brother asked coach Ramakant Achrekar for one more look, this time from across the ground. It traces Achrekar's punishing training regime at this maidan, named for the seventeenth-century king Chhatrapati Shivaji, where eight cricket clubs still train today, and the quiet habits of a coach who almost never praised anyone. The boy was Sachin Tendulkar. Walk toward Gate Five, where his students later gathered to honor their old coach.