Sachin Tendulkar, if he is given to such fancies, might have felt a sense of déjà vu over the past year—a sense of experiencing his glittering career in miniature. Hardly had the Little Master enjoyed his most prolific year (2010) in Test cricket and savoured the heady success of a World Cup win when the familiar constricting pressure reappeared. The national obsession with him hadn't dimmed; it had merely been distributed among the members of a resurgent Team India. But with expectations of a 100th international hundred raised to fever pitch, and India's standards — and his own, to a lesser extent — sliding, the 38-year-old genius from Mumbai will have been reminded of the time every innings of his affected the country's mood. Typically, Tendulkar has handled the period of 12 months and 33 innings with dignity. He has said little; but he has always maintained that he plays not for records but because he loves the game. Yet it's his numbers that help put his greatness in perspective. So while a 100th hundred is no more or less significant than a 101st or 99th — indeed, it's an artificial landmark as some critics have suggested — the roundness of the figure allows us to stand back and comprehend its staggering enormity.
Longevity is the gold standard of greatness. Over the course of a long career — particularly one such as Tendulkar's, which has spanned cricket eras — every facet is subjected to the strictest scrutiny. It takes a singular individual to survive change: in his 23 years in international cricket, the great man has seen the game evolve both subtly and significantly. But it takes no less than a defining figure to dictate the course of change. As a constant presence, but not an unchanging one, Tendulkar has been a major part of the evolution, his batsmanship and the bowlers' reaction to it altering cricket. He laid down the template for greatness across formats, art customised to canvas. Cricket hasn't seen a better Test and One-Day International batsman. Sir Vivian Richards was a dominant master of both formats — and he's Tendulkar's only competitor for the honour — but the Indian has done it for longer and with greater consistency than the illustrious West Indian. Tendulkar himself will debate the point, for he holds Richards in the highest esteem. But there's no arguing with long-term numbers. Consider the list of first-rate bowlers Tendulkar has faced: Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Sir Richard Hadlee, Craig McDermott, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Allan Donald, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Muttiah Muralitharan, Brett Lee, James Anderson, and Dale Steyn. A hundred hundreds against these worthies is, without a doubt, one of the finest achievements in modern-day cricket.
Let me write, "No comments", just for the sake of stressing that there exists a need to tone down our inborn, pathological frenzy over things like individual records. Get over this, brethren - more important subjects await our concern!
Let me write, "No comments", just for the sake of stressing that there exists a need to tone down our inborn, pathological frenzy over things like individual records. Get over this, more important subjects await our concern!
Sachin shows no consistency in his play for the past one year or for the past 33 innings. For the selectors there is no one in India to make a replacement of him out of 1.2 billion Indians.India is more important than an individual. Because of him, we lost to a tiny country, Bangladesh. A great shame. Look at the Pakistan team, and Australian team. They change players with an intention to win. More over the media praise him even we got defeated. Comparing him with the great Don Bradman is senseless attempt. Don Bradman's average is 99.94. No one in the cricket world can't imagine to reach his place.Say goodbye to Sachin for the sake of Indian team. We salute to young Virat Kholi for his wonderful play for India.
The fuss about sachin's 100th hundred had effect on the entire
team,you know it is a very difficult thing to achieve something big as
this,which even succumbed the legend and intrigued him for a year.This
paralyzed the entire teams consistency and became one of the cause for
the recent blemish in overseas matches.Expectations were at its peak
as crowd gave a standing ovation were ever he went,subsequently piling
more pressure.But,the batting maestro kept his head cool and made it
possible by scoring his maiden century against bangladesh which is a
sort of summing up the equation.Hope he will come out of it and
continue his form till he himself think of calling it a day.
This writer does not watch cricket. But I remember when Gavaskar, over
aged for a cricketer, made a record of sorts with his centuries somebody
wrote in newspaper that his was an achievement comparable to the then
Poona lad who got into the Guinness book with his longest fingernails
which he took decades to grow. The same comment may be appropriate for
Sachin also.
Glad to see some criticism of hero worship in the comments section. As
your own journalist Sainath has said, even the serious issues in media
become hero-oriented. Why can't we just watch sports for just the
entertainment and not put any emotional baggage associated with it.
When many Indians were nervous that Sachin could not make a century of
the centuries for a long time, a thought often crossed my mind. Why
couldn't any well wishers of Sachin 'fix' a match for him? That looks
ridiculous and laughable but just a thought!
And why should we consider a number such as hundred more sacred that
other numbers? Isn't it injustice to other numbers?
No question Sachin is a great batsman. No one will question his integrity or sportsmanship or attitude or the genius in him. BUT, is he the best? That is debatable. As a remarkable person, he should move on,now that his tension is lifted and he got his 100th 100. Please don't make your fans see you struggle any more,Sachin. Time for you to make way for someone else.
Thanks for your contributions to cricket and entertaining millions of fans worldwide!
Comparing Sachin Tendulkar with other cricketers from Australia/West Indies is totally unfair. While Aussies or the West Indians had quality bowlers to practise with Tedulkar had only slow fast bowlers. But he showed his class when confronted with world's fastest. World over people are fond of creating records (Guinnes records for instance).While West Indies and Australian teams had 70% talented players, India had only 30% at every point of time. Viewed in this background, Tendulkar's achievement is one notch up above the rest.
Kudos Sachin.I think his level headedness in success and failure has taken him to the pinnacle of the game. He is a master in the field dictating terms to the bowlers world wide, but when he's out of it his calmness and respect for the other players has brought him all the accolde he earned through out his career. His contribution to Indian cricket should be written and conserved for the future generations of cricketers.When he decides to call it a day in the future, His absence will be a blow to Indian cricket. But as a rule all the good things has to come to an end so as Sachin's service to Indian cricket.
Sachin has done it for longer no doubt but with consistency?
What consistency are you talking about? Scoring runs when it did not matter or consistently failing when it mattered the most?Please ask your sports correspondent to do a bit of work and you will be forced to withdraw this sentence atleast from your Editorial. The complete domination showed by Viv Richards is unmatched in modern cricket. We can heap praise on our own man but to say that he had no competitor or to put Richards in a lesser pedestal , shows either lack of knowledge/sensitivity of the game indeed. Let God be praised, for the Editorial team not going overboards in calling for Bharat Ratna on him.He is blessed with great cricketing skills but to put him on a high pedestal with no one beside him or behind him is utter nonsense.The game has produced greats who always helped their side win with their deeds.
Sachin got out for 'nervous nineties' 28 times in his international career. If 1/4th of these nineties were changed to hundreds, Sachin would have been reached this landmark two or three years earlier. Now tension came to an end .The great man and his fans had to wait for 12 months to reach the dream. Even when plenty of records were created,the little master is still very polite and we cannot read any signs of ego from his face. Kerala guy S.Sreasanth should learn more from this legendary gentleman.
Could not agree more with Dr. Hari Subramanian!!! Viv is a far greater batsman than anyone considering that he played in an era where fast bowling was not restricted and he had no protective gear to wear (no helmets ever!!).
''India has been Bowled out by Bangladesh fast batting, Caught napping in the 48th and 49 th over,Stumped by the very slow scoring by Sachin and has Run out of bad captaincy by Dhoni.The game is Lost and the king has won his hundredth hundred and sat on the mountain undisturbed.
Does a country of a Billion people need to focus so much on one man's achivements? Are there not a thosuand people who must have achieved their goals yesterday whom we should celebrate/encourage? Does this idol worship need to be encouraged so much? Is this Idol worship not weakening our country and leading to corruption?
To those critics of Sachin, have you ever let him alone?
- whenever he got out at the crucial time, he was blamed for india's loss
- whenever he did not score, he was blamed for india's loss
- whenever he scored and India lost, he was blamed for India's loss
- whenever he broke milestones which are just stones on his path, he was blamed as selfish guy playing for records
- whenever he made money (for a great player, money will come to him and he does not need to go after it), he was blamed as money minded.
Who cares? I am lucky to see a once in generation play. This is what I will tell my grand children.If tendulkar retired now, you know what will happen.......you all will 100% brand him saying that he played ONLY to get his 100th 100. Carrying the burden of 1 billion people's expectation that he should score a century everytime he goes out to bat for 23 years and taking all the above criticisms from you guys and yet performing and being humble on and off the field, only sachin can do.
Finally the "NATIONAL TENSION" Sachin's hundred of hundred comes to an an end.Rarely a man in this universe will doubt his great contribution to both formats of cricket.But as all good things come to end,so the Sachin's career .Now there is a reflection of his ageing on his batting.So he must say good bye to cricket with full dignity and purpose his place to new-comers.
It may be finest achievement, but what will haunt me, and may be many others, is the fact that Sachin made his century of centuries to lose the match for his team. Unfortunately, most of his centuries I have been watching, have been for the losing cause, including his 175 against Australia in 2009.
The words "He laid down the template for greatness across formats, art customised to canvas" is grandiose media hype, when the celebration is on personal record and statistics. Greatness is on canvas when one plays for the nation to win (or lose by fighting) and not for a record. Team India fails miserably when it matters. To add wounds to injury of the national psyche, the team's reaction to their dismal performance is always unapologetic. Tendulkar, despite his personal records has been no exception to this. Thus to say Indians value statistics than 'performing & winning' is not an understatement. As Greg Chappel remarked, Indians played (in Australia) like millionaires, rather than love for the game or competition. This has been the virtue of Indian cricket since the yore. Comparing Tendulkar to the likes of Vivian Richards is obscure, for Richards never played for his records, but for his team and the country. Pedestalising statistics kills the national psyche!
If handling the pressures of international cricket were not enough, to
handle the expectations of cricket-mad nation of a billion people can
never be captured by any statistics. We can only get an inkling of the kind of pressure he has been under ever since the world realized what a special talent he is. But like Arjuna who only saw the fruit when he took aim, Tendulkar, just like all special people, seems to have the ability to tune out everything else and concentrate one what they enjoy doing best. He is a model par excellence both on and off the field. The cricketing world salutes him!
(BTW, in the editorial the correct word that should have been used is "enormousness" and not "enormity"---these two words are not quite synonyms.]
A remarkable achievement. During our College Days, we had a lesson titled "Pele's thousandth goal". The time the little master took to achieve his 100th 100 and the media and public focus on it, reminded me of Pele's thousandth goal. 100 - is just a number. It is 1 greater than 99 and 1 less than 101. As rightly pointed 99 and 101 are also equally important - yet the roundness of the number intrigues us. This is not to put belittle the achievement - just a perspective that the little master would have achieved it long ago if only there was less pressure on him from every possible angle. Kudos to him on a wonderful achievement.
The funny thing about Sachin making his hundredth hundred in Mirpur is
that when all the shiv sainiks were awaiting this event in Mumbai last winter with gold coins, fireworks ready to go off etc. it didn't happen. Even down under the aussies had some great unique gifts ready for him in case he achieved this mileston in Australia but it didn't happen. Now Bangladesh were NOT waiting for this event with gifts or fireworks or any hoopla for that matter and it happened man!
Congrats sachin . without doubting his genius his amassing of runs unfortunately coincided with the era of weak bowlers across the globe, India playing too many ODIs, less test cricket against bowling legends mentioned in the editorial. His fitness and motivation levels after more than two decades in sport is simply unsurmontable. Congrats little master and please announce your retirement.
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