On Sunday morning, when Sachin announced that he was not going to don the Blue Jersey again, millions of people moved a step closer to being an atheist. Sachin Tendulkar is the pint sized monster we all loved, worshipped, criticized and who in return, brought to joy to our lives with a flash of the willow, cutting, pulling and driving with class and panache.
Sachin Tendulkar – The man who brought joy into our lives
If you followed cricket through the nineties and the early part of the decade, you will exactly know what I am talking about. Sachin started playing Cricket when India were becoming a dangerous force to reckon with. But to become a superpower, they needed someone who would revolutionize batting as a whole.
Few had imagined Tendulkar would be the man! True, Tendulkar had shown glimpses of his genius as a 16 year old and was the lynchpin of the Indian middle order – until a stiff neck put Navjot Singh Sidhu out of a game against New Zealand! The enthusiastic teenager that he was, Sachin pleaded and persuaded the team management to let him open the innings in Sidhu’s absence. What happened next remains history!
Sachin shredded the Kiwi bowling attack to pieces smashing 82 runs of a mere 49 balls and India won comfortably with 160 balls to spare, still remains India’s third largest victory ever! Sachin didn’t score an ODI hundred for his first 78 games – but after he got his first one against Australia in Sri Lanka, he proceeded to score 48 more at a staggering rate of a century every seven games on an average.
Sachin’s career was much more than the mountain of 18,000 runs he has scored, more than the 49 brilliant centuries or the 62 man of the match awards. It was about domination – terrorizing bowlers across the world. It was about carrying the entire country’s hopes on your shoulders. It was about bringing sheer joy – turning bad days at work into good days in front of the TV!!
There was an unmistakable gleam in the eyes whenever the ball sped past the covers like a tracer bullet or the sense of disappointment whenever the straight drive crashed into the stumps at the non striker’s end. There were some nervy moments every time he moved into the nineties and sometimes the heart missed a beat whenever the ball rapped his pads. The flick of the wrists, the ball racing away to the fine leg fielder while he scampered away for two runs, the goosebumps he generated whenever he looked up to the heavens on reaching another century are symbolic of the Little Master.
The hundred against Aussies in the 1996 World Cup, his innings on a minefield in the semifinal, the carnage he caused during the desert storm and followed it up with a birthday present to himself, hooking Andy Caddick out of the ground and taking Wasim, Shoaib and Akthar to the cleaners, a magnificent 175 in a losing cause against Australia, a double century against the best bowling attack in the world and a World Cup victory to cap it all. And I haven’t even mentioned the 154 wickets that makes him India’s eleventh most successful bowler or the 140 catches he has taken – Sachin’s career has achieved it all!
In Test Cricket, you called Don Bradman the greatest ever! Or probably Jacques Kallis? Or Sachin? Or Lara? In ODIs, you can call Sachin Tendulkar the greatest ever! Or probably…ermmm…. No one comes close enough!
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Tags: 2011 World Cup, Cricket, India, Indian Cricket, ODI Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar
