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Journalism of Courage
Sachin Tendulkar is on a mission. He wants to make his critics eat each and every one of their words via which they told India,and the world at large,that Sachin Tendulkar is selfish,has no national pride and does nothing positive for the team. They,the critics,had pointed out that the fact is self-evident in his batting performances and statistics.
And,most gallingly for Sachin,came the accusation that he has mostly never managed to win,or save,India from crashing to defeat.
While the job of taming the fast bowlers began with Sunil Gavaskar,but he mostly kept them away from his wickets,he never bludgeoned them into submission,which is what Sachin taught the world to do and that is what all batsmen,globally,now try to do with varying success even today,the memory of how West Indies pacemen ripped through Gavaskar’s defences (once sending his weakly flailing bat flying into the sky with the fiery nature of their bowling) in the home Test series just after India won the ODI World Cup dominates the mind of those who saw it then.
However,we digress. To get back to Sachin and the story of his detractors,it was the elbow injury and some other ones that followed,that made people scrutinise his averages,percentages of winning scores,batting at crucial junctures etc.
The stats threw up a damning indictment Sachin,under pressure,especially during crunch games like finals or when India was in danger of losing a Test,or ODI,did not perform. In short he was not the saviour,the warrior-hero,or the God,that the country’s cricketing fans had built into his image. His tool,the thick bludgeon-like blade that he referred to as a bat,turned limp at the most inopportune moments.
Except for die hard fans,everyone wanted Sachin to retire.
It should be remembered that he was in danger of being overtaken by then-rampant Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting
But hanging up his bat was not at all on Sachin’s mind and,while he recuperated,he took the blows of his critics squarely on the jaw,but refused to crumble on the crease. He refused to go down at all. And now,just as he had beaten the pacers of his early-batting days into submission,he has proceeded to beat the critics into a pulp,with his bat,of course.
Today,he stands at the pinnacle of his career and he boasts of the ‘mostest’ stats of them all most test centuries (50),most ODI hundreds (46) most test matches (175),most test runs (14,509).
Now,the wheel of fortune has turned so much that an increasingly vulnerable Lara is retired and the Australian crowds are baying for Ponting’s blood.
And,in 2010,Sachin is again on top. At the age of 37,he has,over the last 12 months,scored 1,539 runs at the rate of 85 in 13 Tests with seven hundreds and five fifties.
Not just that,he has led from the front with his bat to ensure India becomes the No. 1 team in the world in Tests (ICC has ranked India as such and No. 2 in ODIs) and Sachin himself is the World’s No 2 batsman,with just 2 points separating him from K Sangakkara who tops the list if his teammates had backed him up,surely Sachin would have batted himself into the No 1 position,no?
And,as far as that comment (that he does not bat well enough to stop India from sliding to defeat) is concerned,well he just smashed 111 at Centurion and emerged not out.
Message: cricket is a team sport and one man can’t cause a Test to be lost alone and neither can he effect a win on the strength of his batting.
A few cases where the Kapil Dev’s and Jacques Kallis or Imran Khan’s have done so,then those are unique achievements which do happen once in a blue moon check the stats.
And retirement,well,he looked too happy when he raised his bat to the sky after scoring his 50th century for him to give it all up. After all,there is everything to play for,especially with the ICC ODI World Cup round the corner,then there are tours to West Indies,and England in the offing and on and on…
