Vishal Sharma
When Sachin Tendulkar takes to the field in the Mumbai test to be held on 14-18th November, it would be the last time we would see the cricket colossus on the field. What a sight it would be! The spectacle would not be restricted to watching maestro at work, something that has been a constant in the lives of many of us, rather, the occasion would be steeped in emotions. Here’s a man who has brought happiness in the lives of rich and deprived alike for more than two decades would now permanently exit from the mindscape of a crazy nation.
For a man who has had to carry the enormous weight of a billion peoples’ expectation every time he strode out to bat in the cricketing middle, it would have been better, if he had been spared the extravagant hoopla surrounding his farewell series. Not that he would be distracted. For he has handled far more disrupting distractions in the past. But it’s just that it would have been a fitting homage to him, if he had been allowed to walk into the sunset without the wholly avoidable cacophony of accompanying razzmatazz. May be it would have allowed him to concentrate on the craft he has held so dear, and score heavily. But then have we ever been kind to Tendulkar?
Tendulkar has been a phenomenon. The man has defined the art of batsmanship both in terms of skill and consistency. Those who have gone before him played the game at a pace that characterized the nature of times they were living in. One- dayers weren’t entrenched then. Tests were the staple. The premium was more on digging yourself in and winning by attrition. Even dull and drab draws had a certain romance. Batters enjoyed playing for long and not for runs. Defence often was the best form of offence. If you could successfully defend and even extract draws, you had served the purpose.
Tendulkar’s era was different. Emphasis had shifted from drawing matches to winning them. Tests had morphed into a format where every day of the match was played as a one dayer of 90 overs. From a single match spanning five days, it was now perceived as a conglomeration of five one dayers being played consecutively. Every session was hotly contested and there was more accent on taking wickets in a lump and scoring runs quickly. There was no appetite for waiting for things to happen. You had to go in for a kill.
Tendulkar had to immediately adjust. He had to show a certain measure of patience and nuance in the tests while retaining the bravado synonymous with the shorter format to excel in the latter. He made the transition in a way no one in the history of the game of cricket has ever. You have batters who have excelled in one format. He excelled in both. Having 51 test and 49 ODI hundreds and over thirty thousand runs in both the formats, Tendulkar showed that he was cricket’s manfriday. His feats are daunting. His predecessors, barring great Don Bradman, are nowhere near him. His peers have been only doing catching up and may have to do that forever. His successors, god bless them, have a mountain to climb.
Tendulkar, however, can’t only be defined by the most successful adjustment ever made by a batsman between the two vastly different formats. He will be remembered for having single handedly pulled a nation that was adrift out of the slough of melancholy. Who would forget what the Imran Khan led Pakistan time had done to the Indian team in the mid and late eighties? Pak team’s domination over Indian team was near total. Such was its effect that in any bilateral tie, it was a given that India would come out loser. Remember the regular humiliation faced by the Indian team at the hands of the Pakistan team at Sharjah.
It was Tendulkar who took attack to the Pakistanis. With his aggressive batting, he led many a counterattack against a team that had come to accept that India could never counteract. He bared his fangs to the Pakistanis when, as a sixteen year old playing in his first tie in Pakistan, he repeatedly tonked the famed leg spinner Abdul Qadir out of the park. He announced his arrival in style and could possibly have found no better stage than against arch rival Pak. His performance against Pak during his more than two decade old career later has been such that latter could never subdue India like in eighties.
His duels against Waqar and Wasim were treats to watch. While the duo put almost every batsman in a spot of bother in their heydays, they could never get Sachin’s number. Being a true professional himself, Wasim has been kind to acknowledge the supremacy Sachin enjoyed in their gripping encounters.
Leg spinning legend Shane Warne was a favourite whipping boy of Tendulkar. To his credit, Warne has also recognized the greatness of Sachin Tendulkar ; going as far as to say that he is the best batsmen of his era. His duels with Tendulkar were marked by onesidedness in favour of the latter. Warne held the entire fraternity of batters in awe. Whereas when it came to Sachin, he was like a midget in urinal.
Tendulkar’s contests with Glenn Macgrath and Allan Donald were also scintillating to watch. While he scored heavily against them, the contests were not one-sided at all. They were rather even-stevens, with none ceding any quarter. Mutiah Muralidharan, legendary offie, was well read and played by Tendulkar. He had to invent paddle sweeps to thwart his enormous offspinning delivery, just as he had to think up upper cut and subtle flicks to counter rising and in-dipping deliveries from the fast bowlers. Tendulkar’s greatness also lay in constantly evolving as a batsman. In later years, when his great hand to eye coordination started playing truant with him, he had to cut down on many extravagant shots to prolong his stay in the crease. When his back gave in in the year 1999, he removed pull and hook shots from his repertoire, albeit temporarily. When he had tennis elbow in early 2000s, he reduced expansive driving, which required him to extend his limbs back and forth and lean into the shots. While he did that, he came up with alternative shots, which were easy on effort, but unfortunately on elegance as well. But even as he produced a rehashed version of himself, he ensured that he kept scoring.
Tendulkar, for all his run making skills and feats, would still remain someone who soothed the nerves of a greatly morose nation at a time when India longed for his own redemption man. His arrival coincided with an India of broken economy, sagging sporting spirits and unruly internal security scenario. Every century he scored, he gave all of us a reason enough to cheer up. Today when he leaves, he should do so with the satisfaction that he has helped redeem a nation from the quagmire of mediocrity and sullenness. And this is far greater achievement than what he has done on the field.
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