A true Hero. Review on Sachin Tendulkar

”Its not falling down that counts, but the ability to get up whenever you fall down, that makes a person great”

And now lets add one more chapter to this book of true heroism. True heroes are not idols with feet of clay. They are people with character, with the ability to fight against all odds. They are not cowed down by the odds, and they revel in the pressure. And let me take this ocassion to salute another great hero of Indian cricket, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. To his close buddies he is Tendu or Tendya. To his fans in India, and maybe in other countries also he is simply God.

Now while I am an admirer of Sachin like many Indians, I was not in the category of those for whom he was God. I liked him and his batting, but was never a hard core fan of his. Often I would get into arguments with some of my friends, and some people out here on MS also, over Sachin( as my friend Mayank could testify). I questioned his ability to win the main matches for India, his tendency to promote his Mumbai buddies when he was captain. I was critical of him when he got into that needless controversy over paying tax for Ferrari, that’s because I believe that rules should be equally applied to any one, regardless of their status. Nor did I like his frequent ad appearances.

At the same time, I was as thrilled as many other Indians when he played those twin magic knocks against Australia at Sharjah, in 1998. I celebrated with the rest of India, when he hammered the Pakistani bowlers during that crucial league match in the 2003 World Cup. I agonized when he got out against Pakistan at Chennai in 1999 with the victory target a few runs away. Yes I was Sachin’s admirer but not his hard core fan. And when he failed in the recent Test series against Pakistan, yours truly, was one of the those asking for his removal. I was in fact planning to write a review telling that Tendu’s time was up and he needed to go. I guess it’s sheer fate, that I didn’t write the review. If I had done so, I would have ended up looking like a big fool, and would have had to eat my own words.

It was not the ton in the first ODI match at Peshawar, it was not the brilliant cameo of 45 in the second match at Rawalpindi. It was the innings of 95 in the 3rd ODI which India won in Lahore, that made me realize that I simply had no business to be saying his time was over. To all those columnists like Moin Khan, Arvind Lavakere who were saying he is a spent force. To those brilliant minds at Times of India who came up with the Endulkar campaign. But most importantly to every one aspiring to be a cricketer, my advice is simple, take a video of this innings, and watch every ball of it. The score was 12/2, the ball was seaming around, the young bowlers Asif and Umar Gul were making the ball talk. India in deep trouble, and under a lot of pressure. And that is where Sachin showed us why thousands of cricket fans consider him as one of the best. The beauty of cricket is not in just hitting the boundaries and sixes, it also lies in negotiating the difficult balls, the art of surviving on mine field pitches. Its in knowing which ball to leave, and which one to hit. And this is where Sachin showed his class. He negotiated every tricky delivery by Asif and Gul, but at the same time if they sent down a bad ball, he hit it to the boundaries. It was cricket at it’s best, respect the good ball, but hit the bad ball. So he made sure that the bowlers would not get on top of the game and neither the team was bogged down. And he first provided a valuable 50 plus partnership with Rahul Dravid and another valuable 100 runs partnership with Yuvraj for a knock of 95 runs. Now I don’t want to take away anything from Yuvi or Dhoni, those guys played exceptionally well. But even they would be the first persons to acknowledge that it was Sachin’s 95 that laid the foundation for them to build on and finish the match.

Build on and finish the match

When Sachin watched Yuvi and Dhoni, belting the Pakistani bowlers all over the park and taking India to a great victory, how he must have wished that there were more like them during his heydays. During the 90’s or more specifically in the pre Ganguly as a captain era, most of the times it was like Sachin came in, played a brilliant knock, he got out and the other players, started to bat as if they had to catch the next flight out. India during those periods, suffered from the ’Q’ complex, or the tendency of the players to get out one by one like lemmings. There would be the occasional match, in which others would play too, but most of the time, it was Sachin out, team out. I can vouch for his having watched many matches, and suffering the mortification of seeing the team lose so many times. And what happened is Sachin got stuck with the tag of Hey he scores runs, but he cant win a match, so Sachin is a run scorer but not a match winner. Well cricket is a team game folks, and matches are won by a team not by an individual. Every one points out that how Laxman scored 281 in that match against Kolkata , but mind you there were contributions from Dravid and Harbhajan Singh in that match also. Sachin played most of his matches as opener. Openers are expected to build a foundation on which the middle order can build and create a good total, while those lower down provided the finishing touches. Sachin did his part as opener, the problem is 8 out of 10 times, it was the middle and lower order who let him down.

Was it Sachin’s fault, that in the 1996 WC semi final at Kolkata vs Sri Lanka, that after he left at the team 100 for 1, and laid a good foundation, the rest of the team just collapsed? Was it again Sachin’s fault that in the 1999 test vs Pakistan at Chennai, he bought the team agonizingly close to victory, and that the other team members didn’t stay long enough to score those runs? Every one says that he didn’t score in the 2003 World Cup final. Hell, he bought us to the final, and the loss was due to Saurav Ganguly’s baffling decision to field first on winning the toss, that cost us the final. And neither was India helped by the main bowler’s Srinath and Zaheer Khan doing a Santa Claus act. In fact the 2003 WC final was lost the moment Zaheer sprayed the ball over and conceded 14 runs in the very first over. And when Australia set us a target of 350 it was a mountain to climb, and any one could have got out under the pressure. I am not trying to justify Sachin’s failures, but the fact is the match is won by all 11 players playing, not just one or two players.