Sachin Tendulkar .....

I will start this blog by writing about the one person I have followed and worshiped right from when I started understanding Cricket. I owe him many memorable moments and without any exaggeration he made my childhood. And I can bet my life that I am not the only one. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - God for many  including me , is also the reason I had fights with many of my friends. I defended him during his "much written about " bad patches and also during the Ferrari controversy. I maybe
was wrong about the Ferrari thing but tell me one thing who will like to pay Rs.1.6 crore for a GIFT !!

I remember watching Sachin come down the line to hit Michael Kasprovicz for a straight six in the now  famous Sharjah Cup. I have seen most of the 90s when Team India was an one man army. One of the main reasons of Sachin failing as a captain was the quality of team he had. Most of the players were not world class and some of them were taking their initial steps towards greatness.

Only the presence of Sachin in the dressing room gives a sense of belief to his team mates and strikes fear in the opposition camp. Offpitch having Sachin as a company can be very calming too as once Hashim Amla said "Nothing bad can happen to us if we are on a plane with Sachin Tendulkar on it ".

We remember Sachin from many ads such as the Yeh Dil Maange More campaign. Many reputed brands had the privelege of Sachin being their brand ambassador. His genius on the field slowly and surely started showing results off the field too. And he was I can certainly say, one of the main reasons of the rags to riches story of BCCI alongwith the shrewd minded president Jagmohan Dalmiya. No brand profited from Sachin, as much the BCCI did. The prosperity of BCCI in turn started getting shared with the domestic players and also with retired players through pension scheme. Today a person can afford to take Cricket as a profession because of the financial stability it provides even though he fails to make it to Team India.


I belong to the generation which has only heard the folklore of the greatness of Sir Don Bradman. We saw his game only on some dark blur videos on youtube. Nonetheless his statistics speak for themselves, and an average of 99.94 really deserves coining a new word - "Bradmanesque" in the Oxford. However, I dare say, if he had played in today's world his average also would have looked a bit human. He was undoubtedly the Greatest batsman of last century. But now things must be reassessed, considering the sheer volume of statistics amassed by the only batsman to score 99 international centuries. Till the last couple of years, Sachin worked tirelessly,put aside injuries and notched up personal landmarks in the process. But since then Team India built on the strong base created under Sachin's long term opening partner Sourav Ganguly and became the No.1 ranked Test Team besides winning the World Cup played at home. If not for these last 2 years, Sachin's career would have been compared to that of Brian Lara - individual greatness surrounded by inconsistent world class talent.


Today,after India lost 7 consecutive away Tests in England and Australia all the cricketing experts are calling for the heads of the BIG TRIO of Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar. I defend Dravid and Laxman completely but keeping the scope of this article to Sachin , I would like to question the reasons for dropping Tendulkar. Is it because of the failure of scoring THE 100th century ? For God's sake he scored 6 half centuries with 2 scores being of 91 and 94. His average might be around early 40s in these last 2 tours which looks to be very bad only when compared to his career average of 55.

I can go on writing on SACHIN - but I have decided to now write only when Sachin retires from international cricket which I hope does not come any time soon. That day would be the saddest day in the lives of Cricket fans allover the world. But as they say Enjoy the Present instead of worrying about the future  !!