Post "Big Five Silver Lining", will it be dark once again?

This is the last straw.

I gave away my life-dream in the previous post a year back, and wished that post to be my last in Pavilion View. Sadly, I could not leave in the bitter-sweet afterglow of that nostalgic post which I had made when I started the most uncertain, indefinite and difficult time of my personal life. That phase continues and grows darker and I wanted to keep the blog out of it.

But I cannot. This blog, once nurtured chiefly by my continued addiction to cricket and sustained by the interesting times we saw in Indian Cricket, must now end in a scream of horror. Horror at the looming shadows that threaten to molest the game that I once so loved and stood by when it needed me to.

The bright spot of the post is, as usual, the Big Five. And to make it as positive as possible I will speak of the bright spot instead of the darkness around it.

I take this opportunity to say, one last time, that which I tend to repeat like a parrot having just that one line:  

The true measure of Indian cricket’s Big Five (not Big six or seven or eight) for their game and for Indian sports, in that specific era of theirs, will emerge only in posterity.

Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman.

It is widely seen that they achieved WITH the system they worked in.

That understanding may not stand the test of time by the looks of it.

Future history may observe that to a certain extent the Five Musketeers of Indian Cricket might have achieved their folklore-inspiring feats INSPITE of the system around them - and still managed to put to sword the Greatest Team in last 30 years. While the latter were likely working WITH their robust system.

When the mud settles the much-‘crazed’ (more than loved) game in the Big Five's country may record, at either chronological end of their conjoined careers, steep slopes into professional and moral troughs.

It did not seem to be so even in the toughest of times then. Now we know why. Because they were around. Perhaps we mistook the brilliant combined glow of these five, the 'silver lining' in the all-encompassing gloom of over-prioritised money eating away the fibre of sport in the name of sponsoring it, as a daybreak for those few years. This too is passing, as it seems..and the gloom is set to return.

For the past week or so we have watched with irritation, and annoyance, three of the five musketeers dispute each other in media on incidents from a buried past. It seemed a tad ‘beneath them’. Well it doesn’t look as bad any more. Indeed, we can debate the right and wrong about playing for one's century (or double) and holding grudges for 10+ years, OR about letting out an ex-colleague friend's hint of frustration with coach in front of media. The Big Five have their share of flaws, but none that cannot be forgiven and forgotten. The past few weeks and their Sydney / Multan / Chappell controversies shall be like baby pool splash in the aftermath of the disastrous tsunami we are waiting for.

With a tired smile I remember a 'lateral thinking' puzzle that all of us learnt as kids: if you want to make a long line short without erasing, you draw a longer line next to it.

In this respect the admirers of Big Five, the ones about to be indicted, are proving themselves to be true-blue die-hard fans of the quintet. A grand inadvertent 'self-sacrificing' service to the Five, if ever there was one. By becoming news that drowns the latter’s mild discord. A hugely longer line this surely is.

I dread to see the names, though I am sure that they will emerge one day.

Quite painfully, some of them would have been lovingly 'hand-grown' Chinese Bamboos in the orchard that was once sown, grown and ruled by the Big Five. An orchard that stood together, unlike before and after them, and refused to cower even when faced by a rampaging Cyclone called Australia.

I am glad I don't follow cricket these days. I am still smarting for the rumblings of 2000 and I could not have gone through that period of shock again - to sense his name coming up from the hints dropped in newspaper articles, and then actually finding the man, the icon who brought me to cricket and who I loved and wished well more than anyone else not personally known to me, getting named with evidence.

It’s curtains for Pavilion View. This time for good. It has been a privilege. I shall be forever indebted that you took time to even have a look at these pages. And return back to them from time to time. I hope once in a while I could light up your day, sometimes when you needed it most. It has been well worth it. Thanks for the good wishes and kind patronage.

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Okay, I am making a laboured attempt to make it a ‘smiley’ ending. I am changing topic. And sport.
It is hardly easy to smile though when it features an injury to Roger Federer. Wish him a quick recovery, he is shaping up well for one last hurrah.

I hope some day Andy Murray writes a movie script, and I shall queue up when the movie gets released. I love his British one-liners, besides admiring the no-fuss sport lurking in him:

Roger Federer gave Novak Djokovic a walkover in the final of the ATP World Tour Finals on Sunday after he pulled out of the tournament due to a back injury. The announcement came just 30 minutes before the final was set to begin and Federer addressed the crowd himself, apologizing and explaining he was unfit to compete against Djokovic. 

Knowing that Federer was unfit to take the court, the ATP scrambled to come up with a solution to give the fans a show. Chris Kermode, head of the ATP, called up Andy Murray at 2pm to see if he would be willing to come down to the O2 to play a series of exhibition matches. Murray was at home on the couch playing videogames when he got the call. He immediately agreed and drove himself down to the arena to play an exhibition set against Djokovic and then team up with John McEnroe to play doubles against Pat Cash and Tim Henman.  

"I was playing Mario Kart on my sofa when I got the call," Murray said. "I was winning at that. It's better than my tennis at the moment," he joked. 

Greg Chappell, the cricket visionary: caring(!!) views on Indian cricket

I was going through some of Greg Chappell's articles in The Hindu. They make for intriguing reading, quite far removed from "the guy that rubs everyone up the wrong way", an image that Indian cricket fans make of him due to his negatively eventful 1½ tenure as coach of Indian cricket team (end 2005 to Mar 2007). In fact, on the contrary these articles are a testimony of why then-captain Ganguly thought of him as a personification of astuteness in 2004-05, and strongly recommended Greg to BCCI as next Indian coach.

The articles were especially delightful to read in this tough period for Indian cricket. These are times when fans are not sure if anybody really cares for Indian cricket. If we can detach the much-hated name while going through the content of these articles, these are valuable views and analyses coming from someone with no ulterior motives and wanting to share his knowledge for the betterment of cricket in India.

Sample this one: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/greg-chappel/karthik-thrown-a-deserved-lifeline-sreesanth-could-do-with-one/article4702845.ece?ref=sliderNews

Even more than his fine take on Karthik in that piece, the discussion on Sreesanth's cricketing talent was my takeaway - perhaps because Greg kept the section to just that: discussing Sreesanth's cricketing talent (even after the IPL spot-fixing fiasco). However he has also touched upon the latest controversy. Like a wise statesman, he has clearly  hinted at the fact that accepting Sreesanth as an eccentric talent and handling him accordingly JUST might have avoided him from turning into a wasted cricketer with unfulfilled potential. I liked the tone of that comment. 

There is a hint of sadness as he witnesses the fall of Sreesanth, a player that Greg still believes to be a major talent. He suggests that there was scope of improvement in the way Sreesanth was handled, but he makes his point without looking to transfer the blame of the errant cricketer's own indiscretions towards BCCI's incompetence at talent management.

Greg himself was hardly better at managing talent....while he was excellent at spotting talent, he failed abysmally in turning it into finished product. I reckon he still cares for these young guys he backed, if not for Indian cricket. Perhaps he realises today that HE could have done things differently as well.

[BTW, this is not the first time that BCCI's talent management woes are costing Indian cricket of its talents. If they had been even half decent at it, then Yuvraj Singh should have been India's next cricketer to retire with 50+ Test average, and Zaheer would have been our spearhead much before 2007..not to be.] 

And this marvellous piece on what EXACTLY is needed to be done for improving a batsman's concentration: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/greg-chappel/curing-crickets-attention-deficit-disorder/article4769944.ece

What I found during this phase, was that I tired very quickly and actually began to make mistakes after a relatively short period of time. If I did succeed using this method, I was usually so tired that I couldn’t relax easily afterwards and I was generally ‘flat’ for a few days.

On reflection, it dawned on me that this method was bound to fail and I had to find an alternative method. The alternative I chose was to train myself to concentrate for one ball at a time.

Concentration is the ability to focus on what is important at that moment.
From that point, my practice sessions became a contest with myself to see how well I could manage the conflicting messages in my head. Training was no longer an exercise in polishing my technique, but a mental exercise in engaging with the bowler at the appropriate time.

What I learnt to do was to switch-on to the bowler once he reached his bowling mark. The fiercest concentration was saved for the time that the bowler reached his delivery stride until that particular play was finished.

In between balls, I had a quick look into the crowd to give my mind a break before returning my attention to the field of play. I re-engaged with the bowler again once he got back to his mark.

The look into the crowd was an important part of my concentration routine. If I was playing at home, I would pick out someone whom I knew to look for. I astounded my family and friends when, at the end of the day, I could tell them what time they had arrived at the ground, who they had spoken to and what time they had a drink or something to eat.

Once I perfected this routine, I was never fatigued during play nor was I exhausted at the end of a long innings. Effectively, I had only concentrated at full intensity for a matter of minutes, even if I batted all day.

This is a pearl of wisdom coming from one of the finest batsmen ever. I wish to take printouts of this article and share with cricket crazy kids in our backyard. It is a must read for anyone who wants to become a better batsman at longer versions of the game (i.e. longer than 20 overs).

Last but not the least, Chappell’s article celebrating Sachin on his 40^th birthday: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/greg-chappel/sachin-still-pushing-the-boundaries/article4648090.ece?ref=sliderNews

What did surprise me was the meticulous attention that he gave to his bats.

I had seen others who were quite protective and caring of their bat, but I had never seen anyone who showered their bat with such loving attention. He constantly altered the batting grip and spent hours with a scalpel scraping and cleaning the blade so that it was pleasing to his eye.

As he explained it, he did not want anything out of place when he looked down at his bat when standing at the crease. I can’t say that I ever noticed my bat to that degree. It was an implement that I used, and as I often had to get used to another one, I did not want to be too attached to my current bat in case we were separated, for any reason.

Sachin built a symbiotic relationship with each bat that he used. Batting, I began to realise, was why Sachin lived and he was taking every part of it very seriously indeed.

A special and sensitive insight from a great batsman admiring another within the sacred confines of the Test match dressing room. Another section of that article discusses about the changes Sachin made in his batting stance and preparatory movement over his career.

I am looking forward to his Hindu articles hereafter, expecting those to be the best insights into Indian cricket that I am going to get on print or web in coming months.

Update: Here's another offering from Greg - discussing the reasons for India's cricketing upswing (barring those two 2011 away series) coinciding with Australia's downswing: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/greg-chappel/things-to-be-learnt-from-the-indian-model/article4902529.ece

Married to the Big Five

I would like to get a statistic from Google blogger:
Exactly what percentage of my total posts on PV have involved either one or more of Indian Cricket's Big Five: Sachin, Rahul, VVS, Ganguly and Kumble.
Hope I get the figures some day...maybe even 10 years down the line with a super-intelligent blogger...hope so!
I suspect that the percentage won't change too much even by then..

Day's play

Today Sachin was Sachin of old, and Dravid was nowhere like the Dravid of late.
Yet Dravid is there at the end of day while Sachin isn't.

That's the day's Test cricket for you.

"Wunnit for Sachin": why Sachin got 18 instead of 100th hundred in Cup final

Heaven. A cold morning of early January 2011.


God sips coffee early in the morning and checks his mailbox. He was out of office for the Durban Test between India and South Africa.

The box is overflowing. He finds a lot of applications from India requesting, or almost ordering him to award the 2011 World Cup to Indian cricket team. Reason: This will be Sachin Tendulkar's last World Cup.

His eyebrows get furrowed. Do these guys have nothing to do? Shaking His head, He opens the next email in his Prayers folder: from a 22 year old called Virat Kohli.

He knew a teenager by this name. That Virat had sent an email called 'silent prayer' to Him 4 years back on the eve of a youth cricket world cup final. At the time God had liked the boy's passion and granted his wish.


Turns out that this email is from the same Kohli Kohli's request is same as the others. But God is immune to such veiled 'give it to him' prayers which are truly intended for self. "Look's like the guy has grown up and as a natural consequence got greedier", He murmurs with a frown.


Then He sees some more requests from other Indian cricket players. God is struck by the common theme: not just the comon folk of India but even Indian cricket players are placing the prayers of World Cup win to Him on behalf of Sachin rather than themselves. "Oh my Rajnikant," God says, "what's happening here?"


God is impressed and decides to grant the common wish. But he wants to check genuineness before granting.


He loads the 'Future Preview' tool on his Cloudtop [not having MSW operating System, please be mindful, which is a banned substance in Heaven].


When God intends to verify genuineness of any personal promise / claim qualifying a prayer, he justs uses FP to simulate and check the person's reaction when the prayer gets granted. Instead of granting the exact prayer they asked for, God often fine tunes it from their FuturePreview reactions. People often do not express themselves so well in prayers.


[FP does not lie and is hence incompatible to MSW OS - another reason for not using the latter.]


He checks Kohli's reaction first, after a simulated World Cup win:
Kohli says "Wunnit for Sachin."


So far so good. God is a little repentent to have earlier misjudged Kohli as greedy. He moves on to the next sender. Zaheer Khan.
"Wunnit for Sachin", Zaheer says in the FuturePreview, pointing to Sachin.


Next is Yuvraj Singh - another second timer. God had recently granted approval for his request to succeed at 2011 World Cup with both bat & ball.
"Wunnit for Sachin", says Yuvraj too. He also goes on to say that the mysterious special person he wanted to win it for was none other than Sachin.


Gautam Gambhir. 2nd timer again. This guy wanted to do well in the Cup final, if his team progresses and if he gets selected. God had approved this guy's earlier prayer too.
"Wunnit for Sachin," Gambhir utters on Future preview.


Last one. This is the only World Cup win prayer for self from an Indian cricket player. You guessed the sender right: Sachin Tendulkar. FP had already started processing 'Sachin after grant of prayer'..but then the battery got discharged. God knew its contents though as he had already approved the prayer (this was a resend from Sachin). Sachin requested for a World Cup win as well as a 100th hundred for himself at the Cup final.


"Okay," God summarised, "I will give them all what they said they were happy for. Sachin wants the world cup, so I will give it to the Indian team for his sake. However all the others waxed eloquent in FP about their happiness at Sachin getting a particular score. So that removes the 100th hundred Sachin was destined to get in this match as per his own prayers. Instead I will grant the general players' preference of one-eight for Sachin."


That's how Sachin got 18 (one-eight) in the World Cup final instead of his 100th hundred.


“Wonder why these players prefer a particularly low score for Sachin in the finals…I have never seen so many people do that to a person they genuinely like!”


He finishes the coffee and moves to visit the World Cup stadiums. Most of them need His help to get completed on schedule.


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cricinfo players' quotes after 2011 World Cup final: http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/content/current/story/509249.html

Raina's crystal ball

As expected before the finals, the Indian players are nervously energetic.


None of the Indian players has any idea of how the final will play out for him.

Sehwag returns back to his room from a special lecture by Ravi Shastri on "Hitting deliveries to the boundary like tracer bullets" and immediately feels this tension. Being a social animal, Sehwag has no intent of withstanding this uneasiness alone. He has set up an Facebook invite to a nail biting party for all his mates. Ex-captain Sourav Ganguly is the Guest invitee.


About 12 suo-moto responses came promptly from Sri Lankan players volunteering to join the party but Sehwag had to refuse the invites.
Papparazzi saw a controversy in that refusal but the story turned out to be less engaging than was initially thought.


The hotel staff have only agreed to clean up KILOS of bitten off nails resulting from the party. TONS of nails will be out of the agreement and the room owner will have to clean it himself. As we all know, Sehwag prefers to sweep Sri Lankan deliveries ONLY on the cricket field.
13 other Team India players have accepted Sehwag's invite for nail biting party ahead of finals. Tendulkar's acceptance reportedly came within 13 seconds of sending out invite...making Sehwag tweet on it.


All except one man.


Suresh Raina.
He is not chewing his nails for a change. He is unaffected by tension.
Why?
Because he knows EXACTLY what he will be doing in that match as the 7th batsman.
How does he know that?
He has a secret crystal ball that has given him his secret brief in all EXACTNESS.


This is his brief:

 - Irrespective of whether India bat 1st or second, the fifth wicket will fall EXACTLY at the score of 187.


- The fifth wicket falls in EXACTLY the 38th over too.

- After coming in, Raina will be required to take the Indian total to EXACTLY 260 by playing cautiously at the start and aggressively at the end.

- And in the process he will get to an unbeaten personal score of 34 (not EXACT for a change, but thereabouts) in those overs.

Raina reopens the cricinfo statsguru page. He wants to check the number of times he passed 34 in ODI's with a new filtering criteria he just thought of. He would next go to the ESPNcricinfo camp to ask for those videos.
[End of story]

Don't you believe me on Raina's brief? Check up for yourself on the QF with Australia and SF with pakistan - you already know that India scored 260 in both matches. Now see the over# and team score at which 5th wicket fell - and also Raina's score in each of the 2 games:

QF: http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/engine/match/433601.html

SF: http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/engine/current/match/433605.html


Are you an Indian? Then pray that Sri Lanka do not bat first and get > 260 ;-)

[Acknowledgement: This is an expansion of cricinfo's stats article today on no. 7 performances in India & SL teams]

When Destiny wilts and begins to comply to your will...

"itni shiddat se maine tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai



ki har zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai....



kehte hai agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho toh poori kaynaat tumhein usse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai...aap sabne mujhe meri chahat se mila diya...thanks, thanks very much, kehte hai ki filmon ki tarah hamari zindagi mein bhi end tak sab theek hee ho jaata hai..happys endings...aur agar theek naa ho toh woh the end nahi, picture abhi baaki hai mere dost"

- quote from Hindi film Om Shanti Om, based on Paolo Coelho's similar thought in his novel 'The Alchemist'
-----------
In a 1999 WC Super six match which could have eliminated the Australians, Steve Waugh scored only the 2nd international hundred of his career when he came in at fifty something for three chasing 250+ against a formadable South African attack. Gibbs, the 2nd best fielder in the world after Rhodes at the time and certainly the world's joint best catcher with Rhodes and Mark Waugh, famously 'dropped' him by throwing the ball in celebration too soon after catching..that Steve Waugh ton allowed Australia to win 3 world cups and start a phenomenal winning streak of unbeaten matches that took 12 years to stop.

Anybody with only 2 hundreds in ODI's who did better, and at a more opportune time? Destiny intervened that day, perhaps.
Probably because Steven Rodger Waugh wanted that Cup badly enough.



Cut to 2011. Another Cricket world cup.
Sachin Tendulkar. He generally gets bad calls from umpires, some of them especially in crucial moments in Test matches. But extension of Test innings is the last thing on his mind today.
The only thing he wants badly today is an ODI World Cup win. He went the whole distance to a final once 8 years back but returned empty handed from the last step.
How badly does he want to win the 2011 World Cup?

So badly that Destiny is forced to comply and contrive to make it happen, as that saying goes. It certainly did so today, by returning back ALL (and I mean all - six to be precise) of Sachin's career earnings of 'bad dismissals' with interest in ONE SINGLE innings, the one innings that needed him to succeed for his team to take him where he wanted to - playing a 2nd WC final. And play that game at home, the city where he grew up in and learnt his cricket, the city where his elder brother & other family members made sacrifices to let him become what he is today. And possibly win the game, to attain his one remaining unfulfilled dream. The one he wants badly, very badly, so badly that destiny is beginning to comply. "Itni shiddat se" and all that.
Quite un-dramatic, isn't it?
Almost as un-dramatic as that win coming through Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar scoring his 100th international hundred in the final. For destiny also took care, probably with an understanding half-smile on her face,  that Sachin did not end up getting his 100th ton in a semi final which will be remembered as much for him getting 6 lives as for India playing Pakistan in a semi final match for the 1st time in a WC to come up tops.

[shared as a note on my Facebook page]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This post has been insipred by a comment of Rajdeep Saedesai to the tune of 'Things getting set up for a Sachin dominated finale in Mumbai' on CNN IBN today after India won the semi final against Pakistan

Commando's walk in the storm

This is the video link of the famous desert storm innings, Sharjah 1998:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXRkHervQJc&feature=fvwrel

India were facing elimination in the tri-nation tourney if they lost this match by a certain margin. After a major early collapse, there appeared no way that India would even come close to overhauling that margin. Sachin helped the team get over the minimum runs required to make the final..and then even tried to go for an impossible win (before falling just short). This innings had everything - EVERYTHING that an ODI batsman is expected to do for his team. Have you watched Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Commando"? No? Watch Sachin's 143 instead. Barring the end result, it can put even Miandad's last-ball-sixer-knock in Sharjah'86 to shade.


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For those who questioned the intent behind Sachin's walk in 2011 WC (suggesting it was prompted by fear of getting caught at UDRS):


YES, that could have been a possible reason for his walk (I am sure it will be THE reason for many future walks)...but Sachin had started walking long back.


Watch the closing moments of this video - he had 'walked' at the end of his innings. He waited to check if it is a no-ball due to height - and walked away when he saw no no-ball signal...even after the umpire gave him not out. As I had opined to my FB friends earlier, there was a time before 1995 when Sachin used to let umpires decide if he was out. But from late 90's ever since he become a role model (or ever since Ponting started playing for Aus & took up the 'non-walker' mantle ;-) I have always seen him taking the decision himself.


[I am willing review that stand if I get proof that he selectively chose not to walk even after 1998. Unlikely - this was a high octane match against his eternal foes Australia, he was the lone fighter badly wanting to win this match (I am 75% sure he would have won it that day had he stayed...and there was no UDRS at the time.]

Alternative climax of Commando: Just before slaying the villain, Schwarzenegger turns into a monk and walks off into the mountains.

Sachin's ton comes again while travelling

Sachin Tendulkar. This guy's too much. I was returning from some urgent work, driving on the road. Having caught a glimpse of India's good opening stand at Nagpur, I turned my car radio on....and sure enough I hear: 'Sachin Tendulkar on 99...and here comes his 100th run!' Another century. He scores so many of them, you can't miss them tons even on the road!!
But somehow this one sounded familiar…coming back home I thought hard about the reason and now I know why. I had once learnt of another Sachin ton while travelling, that's why. It has happened before. I was travelling when Tendlya got his 2nd ODI ton in 1994 – a month or so after his 1st ODI century that came in the 5th year of his career. I got to know of it waiting at a station somewhere in Southern India…returning from our trip of Chennai-Bengaluru (then Madras-Bangalore)…from a co-passenger waiting like me but strategically armed with a radio.
Next time Sachin does his 100th run of his innings, it would be 100th ton of his career..but no use discussing things that half the world knows (the cricket playing half). I won’t like to be travelling that day – that’s all.
By the way, there is a bit more of travel-cricket combo involved in my date with this particular date – 12th March 2011. As my buddy Pratyush pointed out, this is the day on which 5 years back SA chased down Australia’s 434 in Jo’burg. Here's my excited schoolboyish blogpost on what I experienced through my friends during my travel while that epic chase was unfolding.

Unendulkar, the Timeless

The quote below, amongst all I have read in past 5 years that praise or criticise him, best sums up the single biggest quality that defines the Sachin Tendulkar of today. Slyly, slowly and singlemindedly he has gone for the 10th mode of dismissal. Sachin has 'timed' everyone out through his continued love affair with Test cricket.

21 years after debut, it is quite extraordinary that he is likely to score as many centuries (6 achieved, 7 possible) in the current year as he got in 2 seasons even at the peak of his powers in 1998-99. To put in another yardstick, Sachin got as many tons in the first 4-5 years of his career and we all know how unimpressive he was in those days....

I won't be surprised if 40 years hence people start questioning the records when they chance upon this passage of his career. "This guy's incorrigible," the Mask would have remarked. Or in Boycs-ology terms, "it would take 10 horses to pull him off a cricket field."

Quite aptly, this quote has come up on Time magazine - or so I am told (apologies for not verifying). Enough of banter - 'time' to enjoy the quote:

"When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.

When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to "open" the Nehruvian economy. It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man.

Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will."

Sachin: Then, now and forever

This video shows how a sixteen year old Sachin spoke in front of TV in 1989, just before international cricket happened to him.

And this one shows how he spoke at age 36 in an interview with Boria Mazumdar in 2009, celebrating completion of Sachin's 20 years in international cricket.

180204 AD:
Manidus (descendent of humans, but more advanced) have found a 21st century relic. After research work they find it is related to the greatest sportsperson of the most populous country of that time, India. The man had lived till the exact age of 100. As a special honour to the man, 21st century society had stored Sachin's face and his smile for posterity using a technique similar to the one used to save mummies in ancient Egypt.

The Manidus people had also restored and watched video records of some on field performances as well as off-field interviews of this man. All agreed on one point: it was amazing that the man's smile remained the same at age 100 (as seen in the relic) as it used to be at age 16. Textbooks of the time confirm that the Sachin the person indeed remained remarkably unaffected by all external factors, including the numerous major developments he saw in his personal life as well as in the world he lived in. The people find it amazing that the story in the textbook can be so readily understood by one look at the expression on his face.

Within months of its discovery "Sachin's smile" becomes greatly popular as an old world relic in the Manidus world, surpassing the fame of Indus Valley civilisation relics - like the bust sculpture of Mohenjodaro priest, the bronze dancing girl from Mohenjodaro and bull engraved Harappan seals - amongst the earlier humans.

Some interesting quotes came through in that 1989 interview, by the way. He liked fast bowling (even the 80's West Indies variety) as 'the ball comes straight on to the bat'.
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On an unrelated point, I watched this 'rare' video on recordings of Don Bradman's strokeplay. Some of the comments referred back to the suggested similarity of Don's game to Sachin's before degenerating into a pointless debate - and I must confess I got drawn into it to leave a comment or two.

Looking at the shots I believe the first one (cover drive, recorded from a match) reminds us most of Sachin. In two other shots - the 2nd one (step out and drive straight down) and 4th one (square on the off) - the initial movements of Don remind us of Sach but then the Australian ends the shots very differently. Our seasoned eyes just cannot imagine Sachin stepping out to drive the ball down the ground and yet NOT play a lofted drive.

UPDATE: Just found a better video of those 4 recorded Bradman shots. Also no ugly debate going on in the comments there (not when I read it), hence left no comments...

20 yrs of passing Tests, and 22 yrs of keeping his head

As the comments under this 21 year old Harsha Bhogle article on Sachin explain, the republication of this old post has taken back many readers to their younger (or youngest) days.

It takes me back too, but not that far. A not so memorable afternoon from 2002 for Sachin the batsman which happened to coincide with one of the greatest moments of this decade for Indian cricket. The Natwest final, where India successfully chased 326 on the shoulders of 2 young men called Yuvraj Singh & Mohammad Kaif even as the top order stars had all departed with more than half to get. One of the stars was our little big man. Sachin was dismissed at 14 playing an awful shot that put an end to a scratchy innings in front of a summer crowd at Lord's.


He hung his head on his way back. To his horror (or so we thought) some atrocious 'lily livered landlubber' ran into the field and kept speaking to the dejected man all the way to the boundary rope till the security folk found the action close enough to rise from their seats and act. We waited for something to snap in the greatest batsman in the world (unarguably, at that point of time anyway). But Sachin did not respond to the guy even once. He did not even betray any sign of being aware of the existence of this 'sea-gherkin' hovering and blabbering around him. It stayed that way till the end. No complaining to the security, no gestures. Sachin went straight into the dressing room as if it never happened.

I was in no mood to stand up and clap as India were in dire straits in another final due to a silly innings from Sachin. I wish I had applauded. Applause means the most when accorded at the right time. I still keep making up for that non-appreciation somewhere deep within whenever I recall the restraint that Sachin displayed that 2002 evening. It came to him as effortlessly as the straight sixes during his unforgettable "turning back the clock" 175 against Australia on 5th Nov 2009.


Ramakant Achrekar, being a concerned guardian to the 15 year old genius under his tutelege, had expressed his fears in that old article:

" This (publicity) is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything. I hope all this stops he can concentrate and work hard."

The publicity and distractions never stopped. They only went from one plane to another. And he (Sachin) never stopped concentrating and working hard. And it never went to his head. It is quite possible that he read this 'Sportsworld' article and remembered his 'guru's words as clearly as he remembered the sledging from Aussie bowlers during his 1992 tour Down Under.

I doubt if we will see the likes of him again. The batsman, maybe...the complete man, I have my doubts. I wish I could be what he is even without his 12000 & 42, his 17000 & 45, his numerous other records. At least I would be nice to the people around me, good and not so good. And I would be at peace with myself. That's worth envying in these times, isn't it?

Achrekar sir can rightfully ask his share of our gratitude in making Sachin the man he is. Certainly as much as Merv Hughes can claim the gratitude of the world for making Sachin an eternal Aussie baiter.

And how could I miss this....I wrote a post in 2005. It was on a sporting champion I dreamt of, an ideal sportsman. I did not have any real sportsperson in mind when I wrote the post. Sachin mark-2005 had his little quota of blemishes. His refusal to come out to field after skipper Rahul declaring the Indian innings ar Multan '04 with Sachin on 194* was then a recent affair. He would still be slowing down a little after passing 80 to pick up his next ODI hundred....

But then they disappeared; not my memories of his ever-so-slight indiscretions but the indiscretions themselves. He never did anything unbecoming of his stature after that Multan affair. He came back to the slip cordon to help India win more matches. He stopped loitering around to pick up another ODI ton. So what if he lost form? So what if he was struggling and looking over the hill? So what if his flowing runs of 1990's were distant cousins to his workmanlike tons of the 2000's? So what his erstwhile art work was looking like an artisan's work? With more failure as a cricketer than ever before, he strangely kept emerging as the champion I envisaged in that post.
That he has turned a corner in the last 2 years and inexplicably recaptured so much of his past glory after passing his 18th year at the top is but a footnote to this tale.

On the occasion of his completing 20 years in international cricket, I dedicate the post "To our Champion" to the man who, on this day, is every bit of the champion I described in that post. It was surely written for you, Sachin Tendulkar. Please take my bow.
[cross posted on Amber Kaleidoscope]

Update: This thought provoking article was written by Anand Vasu of cricinfo way back in 2000. It appears on Sachin Tendulkar's player page on cricinfo (as on today). In this article Anand too is wondering what can possibly go on in the mind of a champion while going out to perform under an immense burden of expectations.

"He is no statesman, no politician, no religious leader. And yet he holds sway with as much power of as any one of the above. Whether he faces it or not, he is one of the few Indians who binds the whole of this country. Probably, no other person in the country is as uniformly admired as him. He is in a position of immense power. Did he choose to get to this position and work towards it? One reckons not. The price he has had to pay as an individual is incomparable to the rewards."