I will start with a confession: I am nostalgic, because all my cricket memories, from childhood to today, are linked to this man: SACHIN RAMESH TENDULKAR.
Sachin’s class is unmatched in modern cricket. It’s no wonder he’s counted alongside some of the biggest names in the sport. To be considered one among the all-time greats like Sir Don Bradman, Sir Vivian Ricards and Sunil Gavaskar so early in one’s career would have been a great satisfaction to many. But this roughly 5’5″ boy from Mumbai was different. Sachin racked up an immeasurable number of runs across all formats of the game, from First Class to ODI to Test Test Matches – he rose victorious with his head held high. The Career de Sachin has been closely scrutinized and followed by cricket watchers and fans not only in India but across the globe.
Particularly, for me, he was and continues to be, no matter what, a hero. I still remember when I, as an 8-year-old boy, had the honor of watching Sachin bat from the stands of the Captain Roopsingh Stadium in Gwalior during India’s match against West Indies in the 1996 Wills World Cup. It was a sight indeed. different from watching it on TVs. Seeing Sachin batting from such a close corner and then seeing him take the Man of the Match award, for a brilliant 70 under pressure, was a dream come true. It was during the days when India, as a team of 11 odd players, only had one batsman. The little maestro, with the weight of a million hopes on his shoulders, more often than not did the Indian fans justice. It was when the runs scored by Sachin formed the majority of India’s total runs scored. It is an indisputable fact that Sachin, as a single force, led India to many unimaginable victories, including the 1998 victory in Sharjah against Australia. The victory belonged to Sachin, not the team. So brutal was the strength of the weak-middleweight man that Steve Waugh couldn’t help but comment in the following days’ press conference: “We didn’t lose the match against India, we lost the match against a man named Sachin.” Tendulkar”. And this is just one example, among many, when Sachin helped India to overcome appearances of God.
Given his devotion and decorum towards the game, it was sad and strange to learn that soon, in the early 2000s, Sachin was being accused of playing for personal milestones and not for the team. He was being chastised for not contributing the bat when it really mattered. Perhaps, he bore the brunt of the high expectations people had of him. By then he was already considered a God; no wonder people wanted him to perform all the time, flawlessly and relentlessly.
Sachin’s critics, though some, argue that Sachin racked up runs only against easy opponents on easy batting tracks. Let me remind these captious and annoying souls that Sachin, as well as holding every possible record in cricket, also holds the record for batting the most centuries against Australia, the most dominant force in modern cricket. Add to this the fact that most of Sachin’s 100 centuries have come against world top sides like Aus, SA etc.
A rather funnier fact is that most of Sachin’s critics have always been people like reporters, statisticians, so-called ‘cricket pundits’ or cricketers themselves who haven’t played half cricket as Sachin. On the contrary, every cricketing legend in the world and his contemporaries, including another great of the time, Brian Lara, have looked up to Sachin as a batsman and consider him a blessing.
However, Sachin, with his kind of alchemy, has always turned stones thrown at him into milestones.
During his losing streak, in the early 2000s, he was the sole target of all the polemics of cricket pundits and the media. Soon there was much talk that the teacher should retire. But Sachin, once again, at the 2003 WC in South Africa, showed that even when he’s not what he was during his prime, he’s still the best hitter in the world. That Sachin can only be compared to his own alter ego of him and no other cricketer in the world was understood by all those who suggested his retirement saying key players from other nations were doing much better than Sachin. Sachin turned out to be the top run scorer in that tournament. He was the only reason India made it to the final, and his failure was the only reason India failed miserably in the final. But the question of fact is: Do we expect him to score every time? Shouldn’t there be instances where you fail but India still win the game? After all, cricket is a team game!!!
As a person, Sachin was the exact opposite of who he was on the field while wielding a bat in his hand. He showed the aggressiveness of him alone in his game. His bat used to do everything for him: talk bad, throw the sled, put pressure (on the opponent) and, of course, make runs. It is an achievement in itself that Sachin’s two and a half decade career has been free of any kind of controversy. Tendulkar, when he was even nearing the end of his career, played some brilliant shots. The 175 against Australia in Hyderabad in 2009 and the DOUBLE TON against mighty South Africa in Gwalior in 2010 are just a few examples. He also played vital shots in WC 2011 against Pak and Aus and helped India reach the final, then recreated history by lifting the world cup for the second time after a hiatus of more than 25 years. It was a moment truly deserved by the teacher.
However, it’s really sad for die-hard Sachin fans (like myself) to imagine Cricket without their most talented and ardent disciple. There is a generation of people for whom cricket only meant watching Sachin Tendulkar bat, for whom cricket began with Sachin’s rise and will end with his fall. It’s the end of an era…
“THE GOD” decides to resign…
Nickname: h!v