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Monday, December 24, 2012
After Record Career, Tendulkar Retires From One-Day Cricket | Huw Richards
LONDON, 23 DEC 2012 — Modern cricket’s division into three formats means that
retirement for leading players is likely to come in stages. One version
of the game is abandoned in order to facilitate continuation in another.
So it has proved with the most anticipated and debated departure in the
game’s history. Debate has raged — above all in his native India but
also everywhere cricket is played and watched — over the future of
batting legend Sachin Tendulkar since his poor performances in the
series of five-day test matches against England that concluded last
week.
The answer came Sunday, with an announcement through the official Web
site of the Board of Control for Cricket in India: Tendulkar is quitting
one-day internationals.
“I have decided to retire from the one-day format of the game,” he said
in his statement. “I feel blessed to have fulfilled the dream of being
part of a World Cup-winning Indian team. The preparatory process to
defend the World Cup in 2015 should begin early and in right earnest.”
“I would like to wish the team all the very best for the future,” he
added. “I am eternally grateful to all my well-wishers for their
unconditional support and love over the years.”
Ratnakar Shetty, chief administrative officer of the cricket board, said
that “Tendulkar’s decision is not a shocker for B.C.C.I. He was waiting
for the right time.”
Tendulkar’s decision means he will not be available for India’s series
of three one-day internationals against Pakistan, set to begin Dec. 30.
But it implies that he intends to continue in five-day tests, adding to
his all-time records of 194 matches and 51 scores of 100 or more, taking
a career that began when he was 16 up to and beyond his 40th birthday
next March.
This piecemeal departure — he quit Twenty20 internationals after a
single match in 2006 — has the virtue of allowing his remarkable career
in the one-day format in its own right. Here, too, the numbers astonish —
and all stand as records. He played in 463 one-dayers for India and
scored 18,426 runs. There are 49 innings of 100 or more. Next in line is
the Australian Ricky Ponting, whose own retirement was completed this
month when he quit tests. Ponting is nearly 5,000 runs behind on 13,704,
and reached three figures on 30 occasions.
Born in 1973, Tendulkar was 10 years old when India, in one of the
greatest shocks in the history of the game, defeated West Indies in the
1983 World Cup final, unleashing a wave of enthusiasm in cricket’s
largest nation for shorter formats. He acted as a ball boy when the 1987
tournament was held in India and was part of the first generation of
Indian players for whom the one-day game was more than a sideshow.
It also played an important part in his own development, ensuring that
he developed his attacking instincts to the full. Tendulkar began his
one-day career batting, as he did in tests, in the middle order. That
explains why he played 79 matches before scoring 100 for the first time.
But once he moved up, the big scores came regularly as he was enabled
to deploy his exceptional speed of footwork and range of stroke play in
the innings-defining early overs.
Statistically, his greatest single triumph was the first double century
in one-day internationals, struck against South Africa in Gwalior,
India, in 2010 — scoring exactly 200 not out, a record since eclipsed by
his teammate and regular opening partner Virender Sehwag.
He can never have batted better than in making 98 against India’s
fiercest rival, Pakistan, at Centurion, South Africa, during the 2003
World Cup. Good bowling was destroyed by lightning stroke play, and a
challenging target was made to look simple. Anyone watching was
privileged to see the world’s greatest current practitioner of the art
of batsmanship playing at the absolute limit of his abilities.
The greatest single moment was India’s clinching of the World Cup for
the second time after a 28-year gap on his home ground in Mumbai last
year. Tendulkar’s contribution to the match was limited, but his
importance to Indian cricket over the years was beautifully expressed by
teammate Virat Kohli as India’s players carried Tendulkar around the
ground: “He has carried Indian cricket for 20 years, now it is time for
us to carry him.”
To have become a true passenger is a fate that Tendulkar did not
deserve, and will now avoid. And if it prolongs his contribution to the
longer game, so much the better.
It has been tough on Sachin & his family
Indian team members found out during Sachin Tendulkar's debut tour of Pakistan that he was a somnambulist. He would sleepwalk in the middle of the night. Twenty three years on, just days before retiring from ODIs, he was still waking up late in the night, at times even at 2 am. But he was wide awake, shadow practising! Such is his obsession with cricket.
So, what prompted this tough decision to quit ODIs?
Only those very close to him could gather the strength to even suggest to Tendulkar that perhaps it was time for him to shoulder arms to the shorter format of the game which he has been breathing since the day he took to the field at Shivaji Park as a 11-year-old.
"It's been tough on him and his immediate family. The call, though, has been his own and the timing too. You can take Tendulkar out of the game but not cricket out of him. The routine is still the same, the shadow practice at 2 in the morning is still happening, but for those savouring limited overs cricket, the greatest pleasure of seeing this man walk out and tear apart oppositions won't be there now. Let's respect his decision and relive the great moments that he's given us," said a former teammate and a close confidant of Tendulkar, requesting anonymity as a mark of respect to the batting great's decision.
Just like the preparation mode - ahead of a match - was unique to Tendulkar, he seemed to have readied himself for giving up limited overs cricket in his own way. Even though his mind was still pushing him to test his boundaries, his body may have told him to save himself for Tests - maybe just a few more if not six that he needs to complete a tally of 200 matches.
For a man who was challenged by career-threatening tennis elbow in 2007, the rebirth - after a painful 'sick' leave from the game of six months - has only seen him set one milestone after another.
Having spent close to two months struggling to lift a cup of tea to playing a stroke with the bat, Tendulkar showed how dedication and daily practice could get you back to life.
Months later, the man was back at his favourite Sydney Cricket Ground in 2008, smashing a lethal Brett Lee to all corners for a magnificent unbeaten 117 in the first final of the tri-series. He followed it up with a 91 in the 2nd final as India achieved their first-ever tri-series triumph Down Under.
Then came the World Cup of 2003, when the scars of the 1996 semifinal at the Eden Gardens returned to haunt him. Later, injured fingers (thanks to the IPL) held him back from wielding those heavy bats in quest of glory in his fifth World Cup. But Tendulkar was ready, having used the time in the run-up to the mega event by setting up a mini-gym at home or spending more time in the pool. The foodie had also turned to boiled chicken and soup to be in shape in pursuit of his 'dream', which became a reality.
Sacrifices have been a part of Tendulkar's life. This time he's chosen to give up ODIs for Tests. Those who think that's he's done and dusted, may do well to wait till March - when is likely to be back to play against Australia in Tests at home. The old brilliance may just be back, that one last time.
So, what prompted this tough decision to quit ODIs?
Only those very close to him could gather the strength to even suggest to Tendulkar that perhaps it was time for him to shoulder arms to the shorter format of the game which he has been breathing since the day he took to the field at Shivaji Park as a 11-year-old.
"It's been tough on him and his immediate family. The call, though, has been his own and the timing too. You can take Tendulkar out of the game but not cricket out of him. The routine is still the same, the shadow practice at 2 in the morning is still happening, but for those savouring limited overs cricket, the greatest pleasure of seeing this man walk out and tear apart oppositions won't be there now. Let's respect his decision and relive the great moments that he's given us," said a former teammate and a close confidant of Tendulkar, requesting anonymity as a mark of respect to the batting great's decision.
Just like the preparation mode - ahead of a match - was unique to Tendulkar, he seemed to have readied himself for giving up limited overs cricket in his own way. Even though his mind was still pushing him to test his boundaries, his body may have told him to save himself for Tests - maybe just a few more if not six that he needs to complete a tally of 200 matches.
For a man who was challenged by career-threatening tennis elbow in 2007, the rebirth - after a painful 'sick' leave from the game of six months - has only seen him set one milestone after another.
Having spent close to two months struggling to lift a cup of tea to playing a stroke with the bat, Tendulkar showed how dedication and daily practice could get you back to life.
Months later, the man was back at his favourite Sydney Cricket Ground in 2008, smashing a lethal Brett Lee to all corners for a magnificent unbeaten 117 in the first final of the tri-series. He followed it up with a 91 in the 2nd final as India achieved their first-ever tri-series triumph Down Under.
Then came the World Cup of 2003, when the scars of the 1996 semifinal at the Eden Gardens returned to haunt him. Later, injured fingers (thanks to the IPL) held him back from wielding those heavy bats in quest of glory in his fifth World Cup. But Tendulkar was ready, having used the time in the run-up to the mega event by setting up a mini-gym at home or spending more time in the pool. The foodie had also turned to boiled chicken and soup to be in shape in pursuit of his 'dream', which became a reality.
Sacrifices have been a part of Tendulkar's life. This time he's chosen to give up ODIs for Tests. Those who think that's he's done and dusted, may do well to wait till March - when is likely to be back to play against Australia in Tests at home. The old brilliance may just be back, that one last time.
Growing up with Sachin | Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
How Tendulkar helped a generation of Indians make sense of their lives
Sachin Tendulkar has retired from one-dayers.
Does this mean anything to you?
Did you feel numb on Sunday morning? Or maybe it was Saturday night in
your part of the world. Did the various stages of your life flash in
your head, as they are supposed to in the instant before you die?
Do you remember one-dayers 23 years ago? Travel back in time. What do
you see? Red leather balls, players in whites and some one-dayers in
England with umpires stopping play for tea.
What else do you see? Doordarshan - the feed hanging this moment,
back live the next, your grainy screen filled with men who sport
stubbles and bushy moustaches, the camera facing the batsman one over
and the bowler the next, commentators screaming "that's hit up in the
air".
Gradually the texture changes. Coloured clothing and floodlit games
become commonplace, fielding restrictions alter the definitions of a
"safe total", Duckworth and Lewis appear, so do Powerplays, Supersubs
and Super Overs. Pinch-hitters, a novelty for a few years, lose their
sheen. Now everyone must pinch, everyone must hit.
Tendulkar has seen it all. Sometimes he has initiated the change, on
other occasions he has adapted. A master of the game in the mid '90s, a
master in 2011. The one constant in a wildly changing format. He was
around when one-dayers were blooming, he was also around when they were
allegedly dying.
You have been around too. Are you a kid from the '80s? Or the '90s? Or
are you a straddler, part of the Tendulkar generation that has one feet
in both decades?
Ah, you stand on the threshold. You have experienced Doordarshan before leaping to the riches of satellite, you have seen Shah Rukh Khan as a fauji
on TV before he soared onto the silver screen, you know of life before
the internet but are quick to embrace the wonders of technology, you
have watched monochrome but are a child of the colour TV age.
What else do you see?
Tendulkar in a white helmet, his white shirt unbuttoned to his thorax,
blitzing Abdul Qadir in an exhibition game in Peshawar. Until that point
cricket is merely a fuzzy idea. Tendulkar gives it shape, adds meaning,
wraps it in colourful paper and winds a ribbon around the packing. He
makes you understand the game's place in your life, teaches you its
significance.
You grapple, trying to swerve banana out-swingers with a tennis ball.
Standing in front of a mirror, you imagine the opposition needing six
off the last over. The stadium is a cauldron. A hundred thousand fill
the stands. Can you restrict the batsmen?
One morning in 1994, when large parts of India slept, you awake to life
and freedom. What a rebellion at Auckland. Eighty-two off 49 balls. A
cameo that unshackles the mind. The greatest one-day innings you have
seen. Can anyone better this?
You are carried along the Tendulkar slipstream. When he is stumped off
Mark Waugh, after illuminating the Mumbai sky, you sense the game will
slip away. It does. A few days later his hundred against Sri Lanka in
Delhi ends in defeat - the first Tendulkar ton in vain. You hope it's an
aberration. You wish.
You observe his every move. In 1996, when he fires a swinging yorker to
dismiss Saqlain in Sharjah and sends him off with an emphatic "f**k
off", you blush. Four years later your vocabulary has expanded. When he
mouths off Glenn McGrath in the Champions Trophy in Nairobi, you puff
your chest, as if vindicated.
It's 1998, a time for decisions. Academics or sports? Arts or science?
Biology or computers? To meet her or to continue with phone
conversations? To buy a copy of Debonair or to take a sneak-peek? These are the burning questions that occupy you.
Do they matter? Tendulkar is dismantling Fleming, Warne and Kasprowicz
in Sharjah. A desert storm, a birthday hundred and a ballistic Tony
Grieg. A straight six off Warne when he starts around the wicket.
Another straight six off Kasprowicz. "Whaddaplayaa," screeches Grieg. It
imprints itself in your head.
In your inconsequential gully matches you bat with an amped-up ferocity.
You nod to tell the bowler you are ready, you hold your pose during the
follow-through, you reverse-sweep and attempt straight-bat paddles.
You
pump your fist when Tendulkar manhandles Henry Olonga in Sharjah.
You start college. You are ragged, often with little imagination. Some
of the courses don't interest you. Many of your classmates speak about
things you have never heard of, in languages you are not fluent in.
You are sipping tea in the canteen when someone switches on a television
set. India are playing Namibia in the World Cup. You find your
bearings. This is a familiar world. Tendulkar is nearing a century. This
is your comfort zone. The next 10 days are some of the most joyous of
your life. That six off Caddick, those fours of Akram and Shoaib ... you
feel you have turned a corner.
You hate your job. You begin to care for little other than your
pay-cheque. This is not what you expected when you graduated. You
assumed this job would be interesting. How wrong you were. Tendulkar is
still at it, obsessed with his craft. Despite a lean patch, he says he
must go on. He knows no other way.
You are engaged, then married. Life gets busier: an apartment, a car,
daily chores. Tendulkar is brutalising Brett Lee in Sydney. An uppish
cover drive, then a bullet past the bowler. Lee offers an angelic smile,
Tendulkar stands still, zen-like, unconcerned about the past or the
future, immersed in the present.
You switch jobs. You like your new role but your boss sucks. He is a
slave-driver. You take sly peeks at a live scorecard tab that is open at
your desktop as India chase Australia's 351 at Hyderabad. Tendulkar is
flying but there is no TV. You wish you could get back home but what if
he gets out when you are on your way? Would you be able to forgive
yourself? India lose. You call out sick the next day.
You relocate abroad. Cricket matches are on a different time zone. You
scavenge illegal internet streams, slap your head when the feed hangs.
You are reminded of your days of watching Doordarshan. The sun is
yet to rise outside your apartment, and Tendulkar is batting in the
190s against South Africa in Gwalior. Cricinfo is hanging. Cricinfo
didn't even exist when Tendulkar started. Your twitter feed is on
valium. He has reached 200.
You watch every ball of India's World Cup campaign. How could you not? A
hundred in Bangalore, a hundred in Nagpur. You suffer palpitations in
Mohali. Then the eruption in Mumbai. Kohli raises him aloft and talks of
Tendulkar's burden. He speaks for you. He understands how you feel.
There are tears everywhere, including on your cheeks.
Here's John Steinbeck in Cannery Row:
Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical and aesthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American Nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than solar system of of stars ... Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few of them were born in them ...
You can apply the same to your generation. To understand us is to take
into account the moral, physical and aesthetic effect of Tendulkar. To
feel your pain, when he retires from a format he made his own, is to
know what it means to grow up with him.
You are the lucky ones. Cherish the memories. He was, and will remain, your Model T.
A career built on reinvention | Sharda Ugra
In limited-overs cricket Tendulkar
represents reinvention - of form, of technique, of order, to some extent
of the passage of time
On the night of April 2, 2011,
the Wankhede Stadium was more than a stadium. It was a wall of volume, a
tidal wave of noise that began on land and spread towards the Arabian
Sea in the west and the train tracks to the east, as India won the World
Cup after 28 years.
Then, the figure of Sachin Tendulkar was seen sprinting down from the
dressing-room stairs onto the grass and his teammates. From the other
end of the field where we stood - my colleague Nagraj Gollapudi and I,
at ground level - Tendulkar was a speck in a surging sea of specks.
Yet, driven to an insane joy they will probably never experience again,
the crowd spotted the speck, one stand at a time. And the noise began to
grow larger, as if it had a tangible, physical size. As if the air had
expanded to fit in the sound of 40,000 lungs each calling out to
Tendulkar, in a joyful sharing. The stadium, it felt, was about to be
lifted off its architecturally solid foundations.
This was the last time Sachin Tendulkar
played an ODI in India. It was his best of times in the game's short
form. Yet he played ten ODIs after the World Cup final, which gave rise
to much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing and plaintive queries of "Why
didn't he quit right then?"
The World Cup was Tendulkar's sixth, and his second final turned out to
be successful. That would have been the ideal time to wave goodbye to
the one-day game, a movie-script-finish, with thunderous music. But he
didn't and maybe he will tell us why he didn't quit the ODI game right
then. Or maybe he won't.
For any neutral Tendulkar observer/watcher/analyst, the decision to
linger on and retire from ODI cricket 20 months after winning the World
Cup must be handled like a DRS-free, 50-50 umpiring decision. Deal with
it, buddy. The last 20 months could either be interpreted as Tendulkar's
blip or blemish, his private battle against time or his stubborn
refusal to surrender one half of his cricketing identity.
With the passing of time, though, the 20 months will pale against the
monument created by Tendulkar's ODI career in its studious, raging
pursuit. The numbers are formidable - 18,426 runs from 463 matches, 49
centuries, 96 fifties, at an average of 44.83 and a strike rate of 86.23
- and won't be matched. But the reason Tendulkar has become the
standard by which batsmen must measure themselves in the limited-overs
game requires the imagination to be stretched a little beyond those
numbers.
In limited-overs cricket, Tendulkar represents reinvention. Of form, of
technique, of order, to some extent of the passage of time. His ODI
career was crafted with a riotous method in the first half and
scientific consistency in the middle. Towards the end, though, there
came unexpected abandon. For everyone who thought they had understood
Tendulkar and his approach to one-day batting, around the corner there
lay surprise.
If statistics can be turned into symbols, Tendulkar's highest score fits all this perfectly: 200 not out, the first double-century
in ODIs, scored in his 442nd one-day match, when he was two months
short of his 37th birthday. In a sport growing younger and faster, 200
off 147 balls came from the most experienced man in the game.
Tendulkar's surge in ODI cricket - and in India's imagination - had much
to do with his constant request to the team manager Ajit Wadekar to
allow him to open the innings
in 1994. Over and over again he asked for one chance, "And if I fail
I'll never ever come to you again." The chance was given and Tendulkar
and limited-overs batting and Indian cricket were forever transformed.
The advent of the attacking opener came to public notice at the 1996
World Cup through Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana. Tendulkar
did not have an opening partner to match his pace but by the time the
1996 World Cup began, he had played 32 ODIs as an opener, with four
centuries and nine fifties, at a strike rate of 94.
He has often spoken of the impact his ODI batting had on his Test
career, in improvisation, widening and making flexible the canvas of his
strokeplay in both forms. His peak as an ODI batsman was always
carbon-dated to Sharjah 1998,
particularly as he chose to play the anchor's role at No. 4 for a
while. As a returning opener, Tendulkar accumulated scores with
consistency and fluency but without the Sharjah aggro.
Yet, once past
the cricketing dotage of 35, with injuries set aside, Tendulkar the ODI
batsman turned up at the top of the order and smashed the clocks.
He won't play the ODI game anymore. His retirement from the short form,
whether brought on by an inner voice or a nudge from the selectors,
indicates that Tendulkar wants to give his Test match batsmanship
another crack, against the Australians next year. It could be his final
shot at reinvention.
Tendulkar, Indian emotion, and in the past couple of years some
anguished questions, have always travelled together. As he brings his
ODI career to a halt, here though are a few less anguished ones. Why
didn't Tendulkar lose his way at the age of 25, having gone crazy with
the adulation? Why didn't he turn into a boor or a prima donna? Or give
the crowd the finger when they booed or heckled him, which they did? Or
give up the hardship of Test cricket and coast, like he could have done,
in ODIs? Stats cannot measure drive or ambition. Nor indeed its
benefits or hindrances.
For the moment, though, a favourite memory of Tendulkar in ODI cricket.
It is not the teenager whose cherubic cheeks bulged from under the
helmet visor and who wielded his chunky bat like a razor-blade in a
knife- fight. Or the boy who grabbed the ball to bowl the last over of
the Hero Cup semi-final against South Africa. Or the "desert storm" of
1998, or the upper cut of Centurion, or even the speck in a sea of specks rushing down the steps at the far end of the Wankhede Stadium.
It lasted all of a few, fleeting minutes, in Jaipur.
This was the match before the Gwalior 200 not out, the first of three
2010 ODIs against South Africa, who needed seven to win with two balls
left. On the penultimate ball, Charl Langeveldt pulled one that
travelled at speed past short fine leg. Tendulkar, on the boundary, ran
full tilt towards the ball and flung himself, diving and sliding along
the ground like he was 16, to get his hands on the ball. The batsmen had
taken three and Tendulkar saved a single. India won that match by one
run.
Sharda Ugra is senior editor at ESPNcricinfo
The Seven Phases of Sachin Tendulkar's ODI Career | Srinivas Bhogle - Castrol Cricket
The Master Blaster’s super career has our expert giving you an analysis
of the legend’s journey to the pinnacle of world cricket.
There will never be a better ODI batsman than Sachin Tendulkar: 453 matches, 48 centuries including ODI cricket’s only double century, 95 fifties, 18111 runs, 20980 balls faced, average of 45.16, strike rate of 86.33 … no one can scale those peaks!
But while it is easy to agree that Tendulkar is the best, a more interesting question would be: when was Tendulkar himself at his best?
We’re going to argue here that there have so far been seven phases in Tendulkar’s ODI career.
The first phase (Dec 1989 - Mar 1994) was characterized by uncertainty – almost as if the team didn’t know what to do with this young bundle of talent. In 66 innings, he got 12 fifties, 13 sixes, but not a single century! His batting average was 30.8 and strike rate was 74.4. While that might have been better than Sanjay Manjrekar’s strike rate, it still wasn’t good enough.
The second phase (Mar 1994 - Dec 1997) – a phase of discovery – began with Tendulkar offering to open the innings against New Zealand at Auckland after Sidhu was injured. Taking advantage of field restrictions, and short square boundaries, Tendulkar scored a blistering 82 in 49 balls – and left everyone wondering why he hadn’t been asked to open before. He also began lofting the ball freely, averaging 0.44 sixes per match. In this break free phase, Tendulkar’s average jumped to 43.4 in 101 innings and his strike rate climbed to an impressive 86.6. He also started scoring centuries – in fact 12 of them.
The third phase (Jan 1998 – Dec 1999) was explosive. Tendulkar was batting with the sort of aggression and authority never seen before in ODI cricket. In just 24 months, he scored 2737 runs in just 2805 balls. A strike rate of a run-a-ball was considered beyond the reach of mere mortals those days. In 55 innings, Tendulkar averaged 55.9, hit 54 sixes, and slammed 12 more centuries, including those two magical hundreds against Australia in the Sharjah desert storm.
Tendulkar was masterly during the fourth phase (Jan 2000 – Dec 2003) but always stayed a notch below his Mount Everest. He still averaged 50.8 over 90 innings, he again scored 12 centuries, he could still briefly climb the top peak – as he did when he scored 98 against Pakistan in that World Cup game – but the smallest of dips in form was now apparent. His strike rate dropped to 86.3 – unarguably excellent, but no longer superlative. And his number of sixes dropped from 1 per innings to about 1 in 3 innings.
The fifth phase (Jan 2004 – Dec 2006) was the most trying in Tendulkar’s ODI career. As injuries hit him in quick succession, the great player was driven by doubt and ravaged by pain. For a small – and mercifully brief – period, Tendulkar batted like a mere mortal: he scored 1852 runs in 53 innings to average 37.8 with a strike rate of just 78.4 and with just 4 centuries. It was painful to watch – and when Ian Chappell suggested that the master’s time was up, we felt the aching grief that accompanies the impending departure of someone truly beloved.
The sixth phase (Jan 2007 – Dec 2008) was one of rejuvenation. Almost everyone wrote him off (remember Times of India’s ‘Endulkar?’ headline), but Tendulkar himself didn’t. Showing the sort of grit and determination that no cricketing great has demonstrated (even Sir Viv Richards faded embarrassingly in his last years), Tendulkar clawed his way back to the top. He scored 1885 runs in 44 innings; his batting average rose to 46, the strike rate too went up to 85. But Tendulkar was still batting with circumspection: with an average of just 0.27 sixes per match and just 2 centuries during this phase (he missed 6 centuries).
Cricket pundits declared that Tendulkar had changed his batting style by cutting down attacking stroke-play. Tendulkar didn’t seem to agree and often reiterated that his batting style hadn’t changed. As if to prove his point, Tendulkar entered the seventh phase (Jan 2009 – Apr 11) of his ODI cricket career that can only be called magical. In 33 innings, Tendulkar has scored 1689 runs, including a 200 against South Africa, at an average of 56.30. His strike rate during this phase is almost 100, he has six hundreds and again averages a high 0.75 sixes per innings.
To put it simply: Tendulkar is back to his very best. 13 years after climbing the lofty peak of 1998, the great man has recreated his halcyon days all over again. To top it all he has also achieved his dream of lifting the World Cup. I don’t think there can be a better cricketing fairy tale.
There will never be a better ODI batsman than Sachin Tendulkar: 453 matches, 48 centuries including ODI cricket’s only double century, 95 fifties, 18111 runs, 20980 balls faced, average of 45.16, strike rate of 86.33 … no one can scale those peaks!
But while it is easy to agree that Tendulkar is the best, a more interesting question would be: when was Tendulkar himself at his best?
We’re going to argue here that there have so far been seven phases in Tendulkar’s ODI career.
The first phase (Dec 1989 - Mar 1994) was characterized by uncertainty – almost as if the team didn’t know what to do with this young bundle of talent. In 66 innings, he got 12 fifties, 13 sixes, but not a single century! His batting average was 30.8 and strike rate was 74.4. While that might have been better than Sanjay Manjrekar’s strike rate, it still wasn’t good enough.
The second phase (Mar 1994 - Dec 1997) – a phase of discovery – began with Tendulkar offering to open the innings against New Zealand at Auckland after Sidhu was injured. Taking advantage of field restrictions, and short square boundaries, Tendulkar scored a blistering 82 in 49 balls – and left everyone wondering why he hadn’t been asked to open before. He also began lofting the ball freely, averaging 0.44 sixes per match. In this break free phase, Tendulkar’s average jumped to 43.4 in 101 innings and his strike rate climbed to an impressive 86.6. He also started scoring centuries – in fact 12 of them.
The third phase (Jan 1998 – Dec 1999) was explosive. Tendulkar was batting with the sort of aggression and authority never seen before in ODI cricket. In just 24 months, he scored 2737 runs in just 2805 balls. A strike rate of a run-a-ball was considered beyond the reach of mere mortals those days. In 55 innings, Tendulkar averaged 55.9, hit 54 sixes, and slammed 12 more centuries, including those two magical hundreds against Australia in the Sharjah desert storm.
Tendulkar was masterly during the fourth phase (Jan 2000 – Dec 2003) but always stayed a notch below his Mount Everest. He still averaged 50.8 over 90 innings, he again scored 12 centuries, he could still briefly climb the top peak – as he did when he scored 98 against Pakistan in that World Cup game – but the smallest of dips in form was now apparent. His strike rate dropped to 86.3 – unarguably excellent, but no longer superlative. And his number of sixes dropped from 1 per innings to about 1 in 3 innings.
The fifth phase (Jan 2004 – Dec 2006) was the most trying in Tendulkar’s ODI career. As injuries hit him in quick succession, the great player was driven by doubt and ravaged by pain. For a small – and mercifully brief – period, Tendulkar batted like a mere mortal: he scored 1852 runs in 53 innings to average 37.8 with a strike rate of just 78.4 and with just 4 centuries. It was painful to watch – and when Ian Chappell suggested that the master’s time was up, we felt the aching grief that accompanies the impending departure of someone truly beloved.
The sixth phase (Jan 2007 – Dec 2008) was one of rejuvenation. Almost everyone wrote him off (remember Times of India’s ‘Endulkar?’ headline), but Tendulkar himself didn’t. Showing the sort of grit and determination that no cricketing great has demonstrated (even Sir Viv Richards faded embarrassingly in his last years), Tendulkar clawed his way back to the top. He scored 1885 runs in 44 innings; his batting average rose to 46, the strike rate too went up to 85. But Tendulkar was still batting with circumspection: with an average of just 0.27 sixes per match and just 2 centuries during this phase (he missed 6 centuries).
Cricket pundits declared that Tendulkar had changed his batting style by cutting down attacking stroke-play. Tendulkar didn’t seem to agree and often reiterated that his batting style hadn’t changed. As if to prove his point, Tendulkar entered the seventh phase (Jan 2009 – Apr 11) of his ODI cricket career that can only be called magical. In 33 innings, Tendulkar has scored 1689 runs, including a 200 against South Africa, at an average of 56.30. His strike rate during this phase is almost 100, he has six hundreds and again averages a high 0.75 sixes per innings.
To put it simply: Tendulkar is back to his very best. 13 years after climbing the lofty peak of 1998, the great man has recreated his halcyon days all over again. To top it all he has also achieved his dream of lifting the World Cup. I don’t think there can be a better cricketing fairy tale.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Sachin Tendulkar: An unsurpassable record? || Suresh Menon - BBC
Around 1900, it was widely believed that physics had reached the end of the road and that everything had been discovered. Only minor details needed to be filled in, the science was complete.
Almost on cue, along came quantum physics and Mr Einstein's theories of relativity.
Sporting records are a bit like that.
Pundits decide things can't get better, and they do.
When Bob Beamon leaped to his magical 8.90 metres in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico, many believed the record would stand forever. It didn't last a quarter of a century.
Among cricketing records, two have always had the stamp of permanence upon them: Don Bradman's career Test average of 99.94 and Jim Laker's match figures of 19 for 90.
Recently a third was added - Muthiah Muralitharan's 800 Test wickets.
Now a fourth has joined that group - Sachin Tendulkar's 100 international centuries.
You only have to look at the second-best to see this - Ricky Ponting's 71.
The best after Tendulkar's 51 Test centuries is Jacques Kallis on 42; after his 49 one-day centuries is Ricky Ponting's 30. Not in the same ball park, not in the same city, country or planet.
When Tendulkar began his career as a 16-year-old, satisfaction meant 35 Test centuries, perhaps another 25 in one-dayers for a grand total of 60 international centuries.
It seemed his fans were more obsessed with his ambitions than he was. After each achievement, he was issued with new targets.
Now, with the future of Test cricket under discussion, including a possible reduction in the number of matches, the cliche that records are there to be broken may not hold.
Batsmen, like detectives in a murder mystery, must have means, motives and opportunities.
Then there is the question of age. The spirit may be willing, but perhaps not the flesh at 40.
It is easy to see why beating a career Test average of 99.94 is out of reach. The next best after Bradman (among those who have played more than 50 Tests) is Herbert Sutcliffe's 60.73.
As for Laker, only two wickets have to fall to a second bowler or a run out and his record is safe. To take 10 wickets twice in a match is as close to an impossibility in sport as you can get. The best after Laker's 19 is nearly a century old: Sid Barnes's 17 for 159.
Moveable feast
Tendulkar is a modest man who, like Alexander the Great, has no more worlds to conquer.
But for someone to score 100 international centuries he would need to begin his career early and play through two decades averaging five per year. That's as tall as orders get.
Indian cricket is based on passion, on easily-stirred emotions; players are worshipped for what they do, romance trumps realism, sentiment pushes out logic and reason.
A Tendulkar ton in defeat is feted more heartily than a 40 in victory.
That is why few are concerned that only 53 of Tendulkar's first 99 international centuries were in winning causes.
Yet today, it is somehow different.
To adapt Hemingway, if you are lucky enough to have followed Tendulkar's career, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, he stays with you. For Tendulkar is a moveable feast.
Suresh Menon edited an anthology of writings on Sachin Tendulkar. His latest book, Bishan, is a biography of the Indian spin bowling legend Bishan Singh Bedi
A fan's paean to Sachin Tendulkar || Soutik Biswas - BBC
The "ridiculous thing", as an English cricket writer described Sachin Tendulkar's quest for his 100th international century, took a long time coming - in fact the longest since the time taken between his first hundred in 1990, and his second, 511 days later.
Artherton is exaggerating. Tendulkar's unending feats have a sense of deja vu about them. So it is once again time to join the celebrations, and sing a paean to a man about whom there isn't much left to be sung.
With the hundredth international hundred now under his belt, Tendulkar holds just about every batting record worth having in the game.
The numbers are simply mind-boggling: 22 years at the crease, over 630 Tests and one-day games around the world, 33,000 plus runs, highest number of centuries in both formats of the game. The ferociously talented batsman is also the leading scorer of Test runs, and had 16 centuries before he turned 25. A giddy fan can go on and on.
Of course, critics believe that the god of cricket is fallible.
Many say Tendulkar doesn't dominate a match and dictate its outcome as, say, Vivian Richards and Brian Lara did. Others say his record against arch rival Pakistan has been underwhelming, compared to, say, the swashbuckling Virender Sehwag.
Then there is Tendulkar's insipid record as a leader - he won 16% and lost 36% of the 25 Tests he captained with what was one of the strongest Indian sides. His record as a one-day captain (35% wins) is way below that of Saurav Ganguly (53% wins) and Mohammad Azharuddin (54% wins). Only 20 of Tendulkar's 50 Test centuries have led to victories for his team.
'Just happens'
But all this, in the end, are minor quibbles, fans say. "No one", wrote Peter Roebuck, one of the greatest cricket writers, "has played more breathtaking innings in the highest company, or scored more runs, or given more pleasure." The age and occasionally the game itself, Roebuck said, has belonged to him.
Tendulkar is an unusual superstar in a celebrity-addled world. After scaling peaks which no other batsman had climbed, the diminutive guru of a glorious game retains a disarming child-like quality and a self-effacing demeanour. "Had JM Barrie needed a cricketer for Neverland," writer Mukul Kesavan wrote once, "he might have dreamt up Sachin Tendulkar."
How does he do it? I had wondered last February, after he had fired one-day cricket's first double hundred two months short of his 37th birthday. Answers to such questions are usually elusive. I had more banal questions.
How has the game still not become an ordeal for him? How does he retain his appetite for the game after all he has achieved and nothing more can be asked of him? Trawling through his old interviews recently, I found some clues. "So long as I love playing the game, so long as I enjoy the sound of bat hitting ball, I'm going to do it. I don't have to force myself - it just happens," Tendulkar told an interviewer in 2006.
It just happens. It just happens while carrying the expectations of a billion moody fans, among other things. But this steely player isn't a buccaneer on field. Tendulkar is one of the most elegant players to have blessed the game. He's armed with razor sharp anticipation, perfect balance and a poise of stroke-making that makes batting looks ridiculously easy.
Tendulkar also dominates the game totally as the greatest sportsmen do. He's at once intensely Indian and global, a lodestar of the country's rising aspirations. "He is a modern man playing a modern game in a modern style in the modern world - and that's what makes him of supreme importance to his fellow Indians," wrote the inimitable Mark Marqusee. "He's a homegrown genius excelling in a global game, a world-beater bred in the heart of Mumbai's status-hungry middle class."
What next? Should Tendulkar now lay down his willow and ride into the sunset? Some say though his mind is sharp, his body - and reflexes - have grown slower. Or will runs just keep happening? Tendulkar is a national obsession in a country where cricket is the opium of the masses. When Tendulkar stops playing what will India get high on?
Why the 100th doesn't matter
An "international hundred" is an artificial landmark and we don't need to be flying into a frenzy because Tendulkar is on the brink of a hundred of those
December 3, 2011
Had Sachin Tendulkar scored six more runs in Mumbai against West Indies, he would have climbed a cricketing Everest: a hundred international hundreds! No one has done this before, not even Bradman. And it's not as if Bradman didn't have the time: he played international cricket for nearly as long as Tendulkar has done: 20 years. I can hear pedants object that there were no ODIs in Bradman's time. So? They had Test matches, didn't they? And if he played only 52, whose fault was that? Slacker.
How many Test centuries did Bradman have? Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine? Tendulkar has 51. If he had gotten those six runs, he would have had 52 Test centuries, one for every Test that Bradman played. That would have been a record too, a minor landmark in Sachin's unmatched career.
How well I remember the great Muttiah Muralitharan's 1000th international wicket! How it was anticipated, how tense we were when he got to 999, how relieved when the great man winkled out… the name of his 1000th victim escapes me, but Cricinfo's Statsguru is bound to have it. Murali went on to take 1334 international wickets, 800 in Test matches and 534 in ODIs. The last 334 wickets were surplus to requirement because it's round numbers that count. Like a hundred hundreds. There's a ring to it. A century of centuries! My sources in a daily tell me that the paper has planned an eight-inch headline, just a single word: CEN-DULKAR! You read it here first.
Warne understood the round-number thing: the moment he got to 1001 wickets (he got the extra one because Hindus believe it's auspicious) he called it a day. You didn't know that Warne had a thousand international wickets (708 in Test matches and 293 in ODIs)? Those numbers don't trip off your tongue? And you call yourself a fan. Pah. How to explain the grandeur of Tendulkar's imminent achievement when you're surrounded by illiterates who don't know the basics about cricket?
I'm joking. The real cricketing illiterates are the people who believe that adding ODI centuries to Test centuries and arriving at a hundred gives you a heroic landmark. It doesn't. This isn't just a meaningless statistic, it's a pernicious one, because it equalises two different orders of achievement.
Making a hundred in a Test is a lot harder than making a hundred in an ODI. The opposition's best bowlers can bowl at you endlessly in Test cricket, instead of being limited to 10 overs; Test cricket features many more close-in catchers; and as the pitch deteriorates over five days, batting gets harder. Making runs quickly is harder too, because the fielding captain can set defensive fields without the field restrictions that make ODI cricket a leather hunt for the bowling side.
To club one-day centuries with Test centuries is to implicitly argue that Tendulkar's epic hundred at the WACA on his first tour of Australia, is the same sort of score as the meaningless hundreds he scored in those squalid ODIs against Pakistan in Sharjah. It isn't, and when we suggest that it is by inventing this empty category, "international hundreds", we devalue Test cricket and debase the currency of cricketing terms.
It is to speak and think like a child with 99 coins in his piggy bank, 51 made of silver and 48 of lead, who is dying to acquire one more coin of either kind because he will then have a hundred metal coins. The child can be indulged because he's too young to know better, but what of the grown men and women who follow cricket and report and comment on it, who carry on as if something monumental is about to happen each time Tendulkar crosses 50, and then mime tragedy when it doesn't? If Tendulkar played Twenty20 cricket for India, would an "international century" scored in that format count towards this century of hundreds? Even children know that winning a game of checkers isn't the same as winning a game of chess, though both are played over the same 64 squares.
| When we invent this empty category, "international hundreds", we devalue Test cricket and debase the currency of cricketing terms. It is to speak and think like a child with 99 coins in his piggy bank, 51 made of silver and 48 of lead, who is dying to acquire one more coin of either kind because he will then have a hundred metal coins | |||
So why are we going on like idiots about this non-event, this half-wit's holy grail? Why can't we be content to celebrate Tendulkar's real achievement? Fifty-one Test hundreds. Say that slowly because no one will ever score more. And if you must celebrate his 48 ODI centuries, do, but as a distinct and separate achievement. There's no such thing as an international hundred. If you do want to join his Test centuries to some other figure to bulk out his numbers, add to them his 27 first-class hundreds: at least those were made in the same four-innings format of the game.
The reason no breathless Indian television anchor is hyperventilating about Tendulkar's 78 first-class centuries is because that number doesn't sufficiently distinguish the great man: there are many batsmen who have better numbers. Tendulkar, whose 22-year career shadows India's history since economic liberalisation, has become, through no fault of his own, the totem of New India's self-congratulatory middle class. He is at once their redeemer and their guarantee of self-worth. He must, therefore, be a singular genius: in the heaven of cricket, there must only be one God: Tendulkar. And so a copywriter's meaningless catchphrase becomes a cricketing statistic: a hundred international hundreds.
Cricket does have one one true God, who lives alone in his own private heaven; unluckily for desis, he isn't Tendulkar, He is the aforementioned Bradman. Everyone else, from Hobbs to Lara, is part of a supporting pantheon of demi-gods. Tendulkar is among the most distinguished of these but he isn't pre-eminent, not even in this second-echelon host.
He isn't even the greatest cricketer of his generation. Murali's career figures as a bowler are more extraordinary than Tendulkar's career figures as a batsman, and if you think Murali's action disqualifies him, Warne makes for a pretty good substitute. And yet, I don't remember (and neither do you) anyone even noticing their thousandth international wickets. That's because they didn't have a billion consuming customers at their backs who shared a nation with them.
I believe that Tendulkar has a substantial claim to being considered the greatest Test and one-day batsman of his generation. This is a very large achievement with which he (and we) must be content. We don't need gild this lily with trashy "statistics". To use "a hundred hundreds" to winch Tendulkar up onto a pedestal is to disrespect the great players he has played alongside. Consider Jacques Kallis, who after 16 years at the top has a Test batting average higher than Tendulkar's. He also has 271 Test wickets to Tendulkar's 45, and 169 catches to Tendulkar's 110. If I was a determined South African fan looking for numbers to prove that my man was the best, I could legitimately argue that you would need to merge Sachin Tendulkar with Zaheer Khan to come up with Jacques Kallis. Zaheer, India's best strike bowler for years, has 273 wickets, barely more than Kallis. Do these numbers bear out the claim that Kallis is the more significant player? No they don't, because greatness in cricket can't always be boiled down to numbers - which Tendulkar's cheerleaders would do well to remember.
The most worrying thing of all is that the Little Master seems to have drunk his own KoolAid. For the last several innings he has looked weighed down by the pressure of this non-event. Someone should whisper in his ear that he is a great man, that this absurd quest is beneath him. If he does get a hundred the next time he plays a Test innings, he ought to see it as an oblique salute to Bradman, not an ersatz tribute to himself. There is no 100th hundred to be had: the whole, in this case, is less than the sum of its parts.
Mukul Kesavan is a novelist, essayist and historian based in New Delhi. This article was first published in the Kolkata Telegraph
Chasing the century
The idea that Sachin Tendulkar might be a fallible human like the rest of us doesn't sit well with many Indian fans. And so the wait for the milestone continues
Wright Thompson
March 14, 2012
EDISON, N.J. - Not long ago, a group of Indian expats gathered in a restaurant to discuss the continuing struggles of cricket star Sachin Tendulkar. The men could have been in India, so closely does Edison resemble a subcontinent city, or at least the upscale suburb of one. Strip malls line the main artery of Oak Tree Road, block after block of sweet shops and takeaway storefronts, family-owned businesses selling saris and butter chicken. (The word for butter in Hindi is "makhani", and makhani is deliciously all over the menus.)
The four friends sat at a back table. Between bites, wiping up curry gravy with rough torn edges of naan, they tried to make sense of the unfamiliar desert of failure in which Tendulkar finds himself stranded. He's been trying for his 100th international century, a quixotic journey that has taken him to three continents and consumed exactly a year and a day. He's got three, possibly four, chances at the Asia Cup, the biennial tournament between Asian nations currently underway at a sturdy and simple stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After that, he's unlikely to play international cricket again until September.
At the end of the table, with his back to the cavernous room, Atul Huckoo talks less and more softly than his three friends, but his words carry heft. He's a pot-bellied man with bright rings on his fingers, president of the local cricket club. He compared seeing the 39-year-old Tendulkar struggle with the hollowness of recently seeing a Bob Dylan concert and realising the man on stage looked like Dylan but wasn't. Not any more, just as the man struggling to do things that once seemed effortless cannot be Tendulkar. But something about that logic seems unfair to Huckoo. The reaction of so many Indian fans and reporters to the missing century has disturbed him.
"They have considered him a god," he said. "They're not ready to accept that he's a human being." Huckoo is close to several Indian cricket legends - when Sunil Gavaskar, a retired star whose place in India's history is comparable to Joe DiMaggio's place in America, visits the States, he hangs out with Huckoo - and he's brought Gavaskar into this very restaurant, seen the way people react to him. They genuflect. And that is what has been nagging him. He'd read about Gavaskar for his entire life. Seen him give interviews, soaked up biographies, talking with assumed knowledge about his career, and speculated about his motivations. Then Huckoo got to know the man. They became friends. And the person standing in his kitchen, or riding in his car through rush-hour traffic, was nothing like the celebrity he thought he knew. In a perfect bit of assimilation, Huckoo quoted Billy Joel to explain Sachin Tendulkar by way of Sunil Gavaskar. People, he said, have a face they hide from everyone but themselves.
"We perceive them as superhuman beings," he said. "They are human beings who are better than the rest in their craft."
"People forget this," one of his dinner companions said.
The myth overtaking the man
The struggle between Tendulkar's humanity and the natural desire of fans to strip him of it has always elevated his fame and subtly cheapened his achievements. He is so large on so many billboards, and has played with such automaton consistency, that it is easy to forget the man who carries his fears out onto the pitch. These two conflicting forces have pushed against each other in his life since reporters gathered with outstretched arms outside his high school exams.
The struggle between Tendulkar's humanity and the natural desire of fans to strip him of it has always elevated his fame and subtly cheapened his achievements. He is so large on so many billboards, and has played with such automaton consistency, that it is easy to forget the man who carries his fears out onto the pitch. These two conflicting forces have pushed against each other in his life since reporters gathered with outstretched arms outside his high school exams.
"He lived up to the expectations," said Sambasivan Amarnath, sitting at the other end of Huckoo's back table. "From the age of 13, there were great expectations. India loves to make gods of people. He is cricket's equivalent of Gandhi."
Tendulkar was a boy wonder decades ago, and he became the country's first modern sporting celebrity. He has endorsed Pepsi and Coke. He's worn a fake beard as a disguise. He's driven his Ferrari in the middle of the night for a brief taste of freedom. His national importance is so great that he is protected by the Indian equivalent of the Secret Service. Election planners take into account his schedule; politicians know people are unlikely to vote when Sachin is batting. Once, when he failed to reach a century during the past year, a distraught fan killed himself (there were rumours of a huge gambling loss). And all these years, he's never been ensnared by scandal, or boasted about his wealth and power.
These layers of meaning are of utmost importance to the billion fans who follow Indian cricket. No figure in the game shoulders more symbolic power than Tendulkar, whose ascent to global stardom has mirrored India's own economic rise. Both Sachin and the concept of media-fuelled narrative are children of that rise; heroes and impossible expectations are the Cain and Abel of any society that bruises its way out of the pre-modern.
Through more than 20 years, his only real failure was the inability to lead India to a World Cup title. Then, 11 months ago, he achieved that, another storybook ending. It seems important to note here that, while this is slowly changing, a hallmark of Bollywood movies is white-hat saviours and black-hat villains, and crowds have actually set theatres on fire upon the introduction of gray. So the famous T-shirts that say "If cricket is religion, then Sachin is God" are more significant than if they were worn here in New Jersey.
After the World Cup was won, India stopped. Crowds of euphoric fans shut down the streets of Mumbai and other cities and towns. Pizza places stopped delivering. They couldn't get through the throngs. The most common spontaneous chant in Mumbai, echoing down the beautiful Marine Drive, was "Sachin! Sachin!"
There was nothing more to accomplish.
But there was. He finished the World Cup with 99 international centuries. For cricket neophytes, a century is when a player scores 100 runs in one at-bat. It is like a basketball player dropping 50 points in a game, but more prestigious. The drumbeat began in the press. Indians love statistics and symbolic displays of success. This was a perfect storm, managing to touch the soft underbelly of both national arrogance and insecurity: Wouldn't it be perfect if Sachin could get 100 hundreds? That's a number fitting for a god. Thus began a media-driven quest. The 100 comes from adding Test centuries and one-day centuries, which no one had ever thought to do before. It's not a real statistic, emerging organically like 56 or 61, but born full-grown by the narrative machine. Reaching this record, which wasn't really a record at all, could deliver the complete victory of the myth. An easy and fitting coronation, it seemed. The defining century shouldn't take long. He averaged one for every seven or eight times he went to bat.
He's tried 32 times since then. His last century happened 366 days ago.
Never-ending symbolism
The longer Tendulkar stays marooned on 99, the more anxiety spreads through the global Indian cricket community. This includes expat neighbourhoods and colleges in the US, where this story has been hiding in plain sight from the rest of us, dominating conversation at tables and in dorm rooms while never raising a peep in the papers. Atul Huckoo's three dinner companions host a local call-in radio show, and they've heard the anxiety creeping into the voices of their listeners, which grows with each failed attempt. "They want to know why," co-host Amit Godbole said.
The longer Tendulkar stays marooned on 99, the more anxiety spreads through the global Indian cricket community. This includes expat neighbourhoods and colleges in the US, where this story has been hiding in plain sight from the rest of us, dominating conversation at tables and in dorm rooms while never raising a peep in the papers. Atul Huckoo's three dinner companions host a local call-in radio show, and they've heard the anxiety creeping into the voices of their listeners, which grows with each failed attempt. "They want to know why," co-host Amit Godbole said.
A year ago from this chilly Monday, Tendulkar scored a century, his 98th, in a dramatic World Cup tie versus England. He got his 99th on March 12, against South Africa. The closest he's come to 100 since was in November, against West Indies, playing in Mumbai. The at-bat lasted two days. He inched closer, crossing 75 runs, then 80. The crowd chanted his name. At Rutgers University, around 1 am, new graduate student Bhavya Sharma's phone rang. Campuses, especially those with strong connections to India, are where the Tendulkar watch has been kept most closely in the US, as students explain to class-mates why so many Indians look like zombies in the morning. For reasons such as, say, a phone call from Sharma's dad in India.
"Are you watching?" he called into the phone.
She found the match on the internet. Tendulkar was on 90. He scored four more runs. Six to go. The bowler landed it short, the ball bouncing halfway up Tendulkar's chest. At the last split-second, Sachin opened the face of his bat just a little, and the ball sliced into the hands of a defender. Out on 94. He sighed, and as he reached the edge of the pitch, he looked around at the silent fans.
| So many things are happening at once, and they have nothing to do with each other, except in the way that all things are connected. The growth rate is down. Inflation is up. The Indian cricket team is struggling. Its stars are fading. And not only is Tendulkar coming to the last act of his career, he is doing it in failure | |||
Sharma turned off the game. Across town, a group of her friends did the same, heading for late-night food. It was Thanksgiving break, and the campus was empty and dark. It fit the mood. For these students' entire lives, everything stopped when Sachin came to bat. One student's grandmother won't let anyone in the house move positions. Another's mom refuses to cook as long until Tendulkar leaves the pitch. Everything stops until Sachin finishes. The past year has awakened people to the reality of Tendulkar finishing for good.
In the same way the 1950s symbolically died with Elvis, the first rush of hope created by the new Indian economy will end when Sachin retires. The next generation will be successful but lack some hard-to-define simplicity and earnestness. So many things are happening at once, and they have nothing to do with each other, except in the way that all things are connected. The growth rate is down. Inflation is up. The Indian cricket team is struggling. Its stars are fading. And not only is Tendulkar coming to the last act of his career, he is doing it in failure.
Listen to former Indian captain Dilip Vengsarkar. He told the Times of India on Jan. 7: "We might have left the best behind. We've been spoilt by success in the past 10-12 years. The big batting guns have long covered up other shortcomings but they are nearing the end. The increased dependence on Tendulkar after more than two decades is a sign of poverty."
What an odd choice of words to describe sporting failure.
Poverty.
Blaspheming his own legacy?
The critics have drawn their long swords.
The critics have drawn their long swords.
Tendulkar has committed the great sin of being fallible. That's not good enough. Everyone has an opinion about not only his life but about the inner workings of his mind. Fans and former players are calling for him to retire from one-day cricket, saying his play and his cherry-picking events are damaging both the present and future of the Indian team. One paper called the past year a "terminal decline". The minority view that Tendulkar chases personal records instead of team wins, and that he crumbles under pressure, no matter how disproved by statistics, has gained tenuous traction.
"Maybe his time has come," a former Indian captain said.
"He has to go," said another.
"It's a monkey on his back, which is now a gorilla," said a former Indian star.
"After 50 runs," tweeted another, "Tendulkar battles the demons in his head."
Those demons, if they exist, are his alone. Team-mates say he hasn't mentioned the century, even in the safety of the dressing room. Sachin has said little to nothing publically about the close calls, offering a brief and contradictory interview to an Australian television station.
"It is easier said than done," he said. "It is just a number."
People can only wonder. They watch him eat lamb cutlets at his favourite curry house on Beaufort Street in Perth. They see him at a steakhouse in Adelaide called the Stag Hotel, where a DJ spins records on both levels. They follow him in the Sydney airport, Sachin smiling at the firing line of microphones and cameras, barrels bunched together, each attached to the outstretched arm of a reporter desperate for comment. They get none.
The rest of the Indian team walks through baggage claim with little fuss. They climb onto an idling bus. This year has been bad for all of them. The entire team was slumping, swept in a Test series by England, then by Australia. Back home, India was boiling, calling for heads, focusing frustration onto Sachin's personal quest, perhaps hoping this milestone, if achieved, would disinfect the rot of the past year. Or even offer a symbolic fresh start.
The beauty of failure
The ghost of an Australian named Don Bradman looms over all of this. Bradman was the greatest cricketer who ever lived. Millions watched his funeral on television. Even in life people deified him, just as they're doing to Sachin. His son, John Bradman, has spoken out against that worship. My father wasn't perfect, he likes to remind people. John struggled with his dad's legacy; for a period in the 1970s, he changed his last name, before accepting his fate and changing it back.
The ghost of an Australian named Don Bradman looms over all of this. Bradman was the greatest cricketer who ever lived. Millions watched his funeral on television. Even in life people deified him, just as they're doing to Sachin. His son, John Bradman, has spoken out against that worship. My father wasn't perfect, he likes to remind people. John struggled with his dad's legacy; for a period in the 1970s, he changed his last name, before accepting his fate and changing it back.
Bradman entered his last at-bat in 1948 needing just four runs to retire with a career average of 100. The crowd at a stadium in London stood to cheer its dangerous opponent, the rumble and roar raising goose flesh around the stadium. The legend - however much part of a creation myth - says that the reaction brought tears to the stern eyes of Bradman, and, his vision blurry, he was bowled out on the second ball. That last part isn't myth. The failure is real. He got out on the second ball and disappeared into the pavilion, his average forever 99.94 runs per game. Over the years, this number has turned into a sort of poem about the inevitability of human frailty, and the nature of the game itself.
Cricket is defined by failure. In one-day cricket, a batter gets a single at-bat (an innings). In Test cricket, he gets two. A great innings takes hours, even days, and one slip of concentration, one misread of spin or bad angle with the wrists or conspiring crack in the ground - anything - results in an out. With a game so dominated by failure, it's seen as appropriate that the greatest career ended with it, as a warning against the hubris of future generations. Men come and go. The game always wins.
The last days of an epoch
The streets lay cold and empty at half past two in the morning. Suhrith Parthasarathy walked up Broadway, crossed 115th Street, arriving at the stone gates of Columbia University. As a child in India, he and his grandfather woke up at 5:30 in the morning to see matches from Australia, catching a few hours before school. Now a graduate student, he swiped his card and headed to Room 504C of the journalism school, where the window looks out at a bare tree in a tight quad, backed by the soaring glass walls of the library. Tendulkar was about to bat on this Monday night two weeks ago. Suhrith found the feed on the internet and logged into Twitter, joining in a global community.
The streets lay cold and empty at half past two in the morning. Suhrith Parthasarathy walked up Broadway, crossed 115th Street, arriving at the stone gates of Columbia University. As a child in India, he and his grandfather woke up at 5:30 in the morning to see matches from Australia, catching a few hours before school. Now a graduate student, he swiped his card and headed to Room 504C of the journalism school, where the window looks out at a bare tree in a tight quad, backed by the soaring glass walls of the library. Tendulkar was about to bat on this Monday night two weeks ago. Suhrith found the feed on the internet and logged into Twitter, joining in a global community.
"Everybody wants him to get it," he sighed, "so they can bloody well go on about their lives."
At Suhrith's home stadium in Chennai, he's seen a few Tendulkar centuries, including a famous 136 in a losing effort against Pakistan. A friend who grew up in Dubai found Suhrith in 504C and pulled up a chair. Hiten Samtani has also seen Sachin centuries in person, including two of the most famous. In April 1998, against Australia, India needed a miracle to stay alive in the Coca-Cola Cup. Before Sachin took the pitch, he told his coach: "Don't worry. I'll be there till the end." Sachin finished with 143 and led India into the finals. Two days later, on his 25th birthday, he took India to a win against Australia, scoring 134. The television announcer said, 14 years ago, "This little man is the nearest thing to Bradman there's ever been."
In the room at Columbia, the monitor glowing green from the pitch, Hiten remembered those long-ago days. "There were no physical constraints on what he could do," he said. "He could do anything." That night, Sachin reached 39 runs and then got his feet tangled, blocking a ball bound for his wicket with his leg. Out! Hiten sighed. Suhrith rubbed his hands over his face. They switched off the computer and headed back out into the cold. For two days, they thought this would be Sachin's last chance until September. Then news broke about the line-up for the Asia Cup, stunning the experts. The Indian cricket board had chosen Tendulkar. An important detail soon emerged:
Sachin spoke to the selectors himself.
A fleeting triumph over myth
He might never make it to 100.
He might never make it to 100.
However unlikely, there exists the possibility that the Asia Cup will come and go, and then the next series, then another, with no century. Tendulkar is expected to play Test cricket for a few more years, which means he'll get chance after chance. But what if he fails? A cricket writer in England, Jon Hotten, argued that, as there is beauty in Bradman's 99.94, there would be a similar beauty if Tendulkar retired on 99. "It will contain in it this kernel of romance," Hotten said. "He didn't quite get the hundred hundreds, because no human being should be able to do that."
Like Bradman's 99.94 career average, the 99 would be a poem about humanity, and failure, and about the nature of Tendulkar's career. Because the interesting thing about the past 366 days isn't simply that he's failed over and over again, but that he's kept trying under such global scrutiny. This seems like a final siege of expectation in a career flanked by it, the final struggle between the reality and the myth. What could be a more fitting coda?
When you look back, it is not his unapproachable statistics that draw the most admiration, but that he managed them with a billion people on his shoulders. He's almost at the end, and the final test isn't of his sporting ability, but of something deeper. "Tendulkar's greatest achievement," Hotten said, "is he's resisted the mad circus that's around him. Tiger Woods, for example, it's obviously driven him crazy in some respect. This has happened so many times with people you attach the label of genius to. I don't know how Tendulkar has remained sane. In a way that will end up being the biggest mystery of all: How did he survive it?"
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Tendulkar is a closed book. He smiles and walks to the centre of the pitch. His play suggests he is bending under the weight, but he'll never admit it. Nobody knows how he feels about the century. Bradman, for instance, never mentioned his career average in a lifetime of correspondence with the dean of English cricket writers, David Frith. There are all sorts of grievances and private insecurities in Bradman's crowded, upright hand. But not a word about the failure that came to define his success.
What does Tendulkar think about the quest? He cares enough to keep chasing it, but maybe the media and the ex-players and the manic fans are missing the point. Scoring the century doesn't define his career, but the chasing of it does, the willingness to risk failing for the chance of success.
In the past year, Sachin hasn't blasphemed his career. He has reaffirmed it. The failure to achieve this one thing opens a rare window into the cost of all that's been achieved already, and elevates, for a moment, the attempt above the result.
The sacred journey is a familiar idea in his family. His father, a poet named Ramesh Tendulkar, often explored the theme that life is about the hard work of travelling, not the easy peace of arrival. Once he wrote these words, which now speak for his silent ageing son: A road leads to many other roads. But legs do not get extra legs; As a result one has to walk the same road again and again as there is no other solution.
Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN.com, where this article was first published
© ESPN EMEA Ltd.
Damn the 100th || Harsha Bhogle
Why don't we all just give it a rest and enjoy Tendulkar, and the sport, while we can?
March 16, 2012
I don't know how you feel but increasingly I find my love for cricket assaulted from all directions. I feel it has been kidnapped, bundled into the boot of a car and dropped off in an area with no phone signal. We fret, we are obsessed with landmarks, we build conspiracy theories, we get angry, and I wonder: What happened to the simple joy of watching cricket? What happened to the reason we were drawn to this great game?
I've come to the stage where I have told myself, "Damn that 100th". It is a great milestone and no one else is going to get there, but we don't watch a game merely for a milestone. We watch sport for the joy of seeing great performances from elite sportsmen, sometimes riveting ones from those less skilled. We watch it as the greatest display of emotion and skill on a public platform. We want to marvel, rub our eyes in disbelief, occasionally grieve but be aware that tomorrow is still ours. We want to feel blessed for being allowed to sit in on such contests.
And then numbers happen. They are good tools for comparison (though not always), but they are by-products of performance. If we watch sport for numbers, we watch it for the wrong reason. You can count numbers anywhere, generate statistics anywhere - the largest set of people to collectively leave Mumbai's CST station on a Thursday, for example; or the percentage of unemployed every January since 1901. Don't get me wrong, collecting numbers is not bad - as I said, you often get good insights from them - but obsessing over them is a poor reason to watch sport.
This obsession with Tendulkar's 100th isn't affecting only him, it is affecting us even more. Suddenly we have lost all objectivity, become unaware of the presence of other players (thankfully the Dravid retirement got the place it deserved), forgotten that cricket is a contest between 22. And now I'm bored by it all and fed up with the angst over it. If Kohli and Gambhir make fine hundreds, I don't want to see or read of Tendulkar's innings first and theirs as a filler.
Sadly Tendulkar is also a financial instrument. Yes, he makes very serious money out of the game but people make just as much out of him. Ad revenues go up, so do attendances when he plays, but just as important, supplements and special programmes sell. Praising him sells and criticising him does, and so, whether he wants it or not, whether he needs to be or not, Tendulkar must feature in the news, on specials, in features. If there is no Tendulkar story, we must create one.
So I say, damn that 100th. Let us enjoy watching a supreme exponent of the game while we can; let us revel in being part of the journey, let us gasp at the cover drive one more time, for Tendulkar, at 39, is playing his endgame. Let's bring back the little joys for as long as possible. If the 100th happens, we'll celebrate a great achievement but if it doesn't, he won't become a lesser player.
Then there are these debates; endless spewings of venom, factories of anger. If an Australian player mutters something as he passes, or makes a gesture, a half hour is devoted to Indians being wronged. If Greg Chappell says something we don't like, another orgy of temper, trembling voices lamenting an attack on India's pride. We scream of racism. One person called Chappell a "pathological case". (I hope he knew what that means, for I don't.) Anger, anger everywhere. Sport was meant to be uplifting but I wonder if that doesn't sell enough on a daily half-hour slot.
I recently did four Test matches in Australia for ABC Radio and it was like being transported to my childhood. There was laughter and joy, good words to describe good shots. Cricket was the theme of happy conversation and every morning I got up excited about trying to be a friend to all those who couldn't be at the ground. I was back, living with the simple joy of watching cricket. And tell me honestly, isn't that what you really want?
So I say, damn that 100th, turn off the anger, put the conspiracy theories where they belong, and ask yourself why you really watch cricket.
In a league of one || Cricinfo.com
Sachin Tendulkar has scored 29 more international centuries than the second-highest tally; it's a mark that is unlikely to be equalled
March 16, 2012
Finally, in his 34th innings after getting his 99th international century, Sachin Tendulkar has reached the milestone which is unlikely to ever be emulated. A century of centuries would have probably never even entered the realms of the achievable for any other cricketer, for so many things needed to fall into place for a batsman to get to that mark. For a start, it required a batsman to be highly skilled in both forms of the game, and in all sorts of conditions. Then, he needed to open the batting in ODIs, for that offers by far the best chance to notch up hundreds in that format. And, of course, it required top-class fitness levels and single-minded focus to achieve the kind of longevity required for a milestone of this nature.
Tendulkar has ticked all those boxes, and then some, scoring runs against all oppositions, in all conditions, in both forms of the game, and over a prolonged period of time. His last two away series, in England and Australia, were terribly disappointing, but those are still little more than a blip when seen in the context of his entire career. Overall, through his 22 years of international cricket, Tendulkar has maintained amazingly high standards. As Daniel Vettori once said: "He has been in form longer than some of our guys have been alive."
What is surprising, though, is that it took Tendulkar 34 innings to move from 99 to 100 centuries, especially since he was in such scintillating form from the beginning of 2008 till the 2011 World Cup. During that period, he averaged 65.21 in Tests, 52.41 in ODIs, and had struck a mindboggling 21 hundreds in 104 innings. During this period, no other batsman had scored as many hundreds: Ricky Ponting had 11 in 147, and Jacques Kallis 13 in 113.
Given the form Tendulkar was in at that point, the 100th century was expected to be a formality. Over the last year, it's been anything but a formality. Till this innings against Bangladesh, he'd gone 33 innings without a century, just one short of the most innings he's gone without an international hundred: in 2007, he went 34 innings without one. However, in those 34 innings in 2007, Tendulkar had averaged 47.24, with 15 fifties, including three 99s and four more scores in the 90s. In these 33 innings, though, he's averaged only 32.87, with eight fifties.
Despite taking so long over his 100th, Tendulkar still needed only 65 innings to score his last ten hundreds, which is among his better conversion rates. The passage when he was at his most prolific was between his 31st and 40th hundreds, when he needed only 36 innings. In fact, his 14 centuries from the 27th to the 40th took a mere 50 innings, an average of 3.57 innings per hundred.
On the other hand, one of his worst periods - in terms of scoring centuries - was between 2005 and 2007, when he needed all of 130 innings to move from his 71st to his 80th international hundred. During this period, he averaged 46.46 in 34 Tests, and 42.20 in ODIs. The averages aren't poor, but what hurt his hundreds tally during this period was his conversion - he went past fifty 43 times, but only converted ten of those into centuries. The only period when his conversion was even poorer was right at the beginning of his career, when he took 132 innings to score his first ten, largely because he didn't open the batting in ODIs during much of that period.
| Landmark | Innings | Tests - 100s/ innings | ODIs - 100s/ innings | When |
| First 10 hundreds | 132 | 7/ 45 | 3/ 87 | November, 1994 |
| 11-20 | 67 | 3/ 23 | 7/ 44 | December, 1996 |
| 21-30 | 74 | 6/ 24 | 4/ 50 | April, 1998 |
| 31-40 | 36 | 3/ 13 | 7/ 23 | February, 1999 |
| 41-50 | 67 | 5/ 20 | 5/ 47 | November, 2000 |
| 51-60 | 51 | 5/ 24 | 5/ 27 | April, 2002 |
| 61-70 | 78 | 4/ 32 | 6/ 46 | March, 2004 |
| 71-80 | 130 | 6/ 56 | 4/ 73 | January, 2008 |
| 81-90 | 63 | 6/ 31 | 4/ 32 | January, 2010 |
| 91-100 | 65 | 6/ 43 | 4/ 22 | March, 2012 |
Among the top sides, it's clear that Australia has been his favourite. A fifth of his centuries have been scored against them, at a rate of one every 6.85 innings. Some of his most memorable hundreds have come against them, be it the two in Sharjah in 1998, or the Test match centuries in Perth, Melbourne and Chennai. Australia is the only side against whom Tendulkar has scored ten or more hundreds in a single form of the game, and his ratio of innings per hundred against them is superior to that against most of the other top sides.
The other top team against which Tendulkar has been almost as successful in terms of notching up hundreds is Sri Lanka. Those are the only sides against which his ratio is less than seven innings per century.
The team that has made Tendulkar work the hardest for his hundreds is Pakistan - in 93 innings, he has only managed seven, which is his worst innings-per-hundred ratio: 13.29. A part of his problem against them has been his inability to convert half-centuries into hundreds - he has converted two out of nine 50-plus scores in Tests, and five out of 20 in ODIs. South Africa is the other team against which Tendulkar has a relatively low average - 42.46 in Tests and 35.73 in ODIs - but his conversion rate against them is excellent: seven centuries in 45 innings in Tests, and five in 58 in ODIs.
Tendulkar has not played that much against the lesser sides, but he has made those innings count, scoring 19 centuries in 77 innings against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Kenya and Namibia - an average of one every 4.05 innings. Against Bangladesh, he has scored a century in Tests every time he has gone past 50. Before his 100th hundred, though, Tendulkar had not scored an ODI hundred against them. Among the teams he has played against, the only ones he has not scored a century against are Bermuda, Ireland, Netherlands and UAE, which means he has a century in Tests and ODIs against every Full Member.
| Opposition | Innings | 100s | Inng per 100 | Tests - inng/100 | ODIs - inng/100 |
| Australia | 137 | 20 | 6.85 | 67/ 11 | 70/ 9 |
| Sri Lanka | 116 | 17 | 6.82 | 36/ 9 | 80/ 8 |
| South Africa | 103* | 12 | 8.58 | 45/ 7 | 57/ 5 |
| England | 84 | 9 | 9.33 | 47/ 7 | 37/ 2 |
| New Zealand | 77 | 9 | 8.56 | 36/ 4 | 41/ 5 |
| Zimbabwe | 47 | 8 | 5.88 | 14/ 3 | 33/ 5 |
| West Indies | 69 | 7 | 9.86 | 30/ 3 | 39/ 4 |
| Pakistan | 93 | 7 | 13.29 | 27/ 2 | 66/ 5 |
| Bangladesh | 20 | 6 | 3.33 | 9/ 5 | 11/ 1 |
| Kenya | 9 | 4 | 2.25 | - | 9/ 4 |
| Namibia | 1 | 1 | 1.00 | - | 1/ 1 |
Tendulkar does not score enough hundreds in wins, goes the popular refrain. It's a claim that has been strengthened by some of his recent centuries: on the tour to South Africa in 2010-11, Tendulkar scored hundreds in two out of three Tests, but India won the game in which he didn't score one. In the World Cup that followed, India tied and lost the two matches in which he scored hundreds. And then, of course, there was the 100th hundred itself, which resulted in India's first ODI defeat against Bangladesh in five years. That means none of Tendulkar's last five international hundreds have resulted in victories.
Overall, though, 53 of his hundreds have come in wins, and 25 in defeats. Of those 25, eleven have been in Tests, but that's only reflective of the fact that in difficult conditions he has often fought a lone battle with very little support from the rest of the batsmen.
What is true, however, is that only one batsman has scored more hundreds in wins in international cricket - Ponting has 55, and sits at the top of the table. Tendulkar is next on 53 - they were level on 53 before India's tour of Australia - while the next best is Kallis on 33. Tendulkar has also scored 24 hundreds in losses, which is well ahead of Brian Lara's 17. Overall, Tendulkar's innings per hundred in wins is about half that ratio in defeats.
| Result | Innings | 100s | Inng per 100 | Tests - inng/100 | ODIs - inng/100 |
| Won | 331 | 53 | 6.25 | 100/ 20 | 230/ 33 |
| Lost | 308 | 25 | 12.32 | 108/ 11 | 200/ 14 |
| Drawn | 103 | 20 | 5.15 | 103/ 20 | - |
| Tied | 5 | 1 | 5.00 | - | 5/ 1 |
| No result | 16 | 1 | 16.00 | - | 16/ 1 |
The wait for Tendulkar's 100th century lasted more than a year and included 33 fruitless attempts, but despite that he still averages a hundred every 7.63 innings, which is the best rate among batsmen with at least 40 hundreds. Matthew Hayden is next with a rate of 8.70, while Ponting, Lara and Kallis are closely bunched together at marginally less than ten innings per century. Tendulkar, though, has maintained that rate over 22 years, and 750-plus innings. It's a mark that will almost certainly never be touched by any other international batsman.
| Batsman | Innings | 100s | Inng per 100 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 763 | 100 | 7.63 |
| Matthew Hayden | 348 | 40 | 8.70 |
| Ricky Ponting | 657 | 71 | 9.25 |
| Jacques Kallis | 579 | 59 | 9.81 |
| Brian Lara | 521 | 53 | 9.83 |
| Kumar Sangakkara | 516 | 41 | 12.59 |
| Rahul Dravid | 605 | 48 | 12.60 |
| Mahela Jayawardene | 598 | 45 | 13.29 |
| Sanath Jayasuriya | 651 | 42 | 15.50 |
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