Text Book!
Sachin Tendulkar becoming the leading runscorer in history was an emotional moment for me. After all here was my hero scaling Mt. Everest and I was as happy as I have ever been in my life. As a school going kid I used to invariably bunk classes to watch Sachin bat. If India won the toss and elected to bat in the morning, I would bunk school that day. If India fielded, I would go to school. In the after noon, at the end of every period, I would rush to the nearby sports club where there was a TV. If Sachin was batting, it was bye bye to school for the day, repercussions and angry teachers be damned!! When Sachin batted at number 4, I remember shamelessly hoping the openers would get out so that Sachin could take gaurd!! And if Sachin got out early, I would be left with a guilty feeling for having brought about the downfall of the poor openers and India!! I remember a lot of my friends used to just switch off the TV once Sachin got out!! I was finally brought out of my misery when one fine day in New Zealand, Sidhu woke up with a stiff neck and Sachin opened the innings. The rest, as they say is history. Sachin with his attacking batting at the top of the order captured the imagination of the country. To emphasise, let me recall this incident from my childhood. Satellite TV had just arrived in my village in Mangalore. There was an India-Australia match live on Star Sports starting at 5 am in the morning. The only nearby place with access to cable TV was the REC, Surathkal hostel. Me and my friends trudged 3 KMs at 4 am in the morning just to catch Sachin bat!!
I can still vividly remember those days. The hostel TV room was packed to the brim, buzzing with excitement and anticipation. As the Indian openers walked in to bat, the TV cameras were firmly focussed on the small man, expending nervous energy in his trademark fashion: fiddling with his box. It was almost as if his opening partner didn't exist! After an initial flurry of boundaries, each cheered loudly by the students, the small man got out. The excitement and buzz was replaced by a deathly silence. And in no time, the TV room was 3 quarters empty with only the most die hard cricket fans remaining.
The above episode was very common in early upto the late 1990s. This was before the arrival of Ganguly, Dravid, Sehwag and Yuvraj to share the burden with Sachin Tendulkar. For the major part of his first decade in cricket, Sachin Tendulkar carried the burden of being the sole match winner in the team. He gracefully carried the hope and expections of a billion people starved of heroes. If Sunil Gavaskar showed the way by standing up to fierce fast bowlers dispelling the notion of Indian batsmen being cowards, Sachin enthralled the cricketing world by adding an attacking dimension to Indian Cricket and in the process inspiring a new generation of exciting Indian batsmen like Sehwag, Yuvraj, Raina and Rohit Sharma.
Sachin Tendulkar has given me and scores of other Indians immense joy and happiness with his breathtaking batting. With his expliots with the bat and sometimes with the ball, he helped us live in a dream world, momentarily helping us forget our hardships and the harsh realities of life. To me, watching him bat was like getting high on dope, being lifted to a totally different plane. Its stunning how one man defined the mood of an entire nation, carrying its hopes and expectations, and still managing to remain level headed. He was the sole good news for pre liberalisation India, which was still learning to face the world. Sachin showed an entire generation how to not fear the world but engage it with confidence. This to me is his legacy to India.
Right through the 90s, Sachin dominated bowling attacks, fast and slow, like no one else. He strode the pitch like a colossus taking apart attacks with a breathtaking array of strokes all played the classical way with text book precision. He is the best exponent of the short arm pull, essayed with precision through midwicket off truly fast bowlers. His powerful hook shot (seen MCragth hooked right out of the ground in Kenya?) played with a heavy bat made one wonder where he got the strength from!! His use of feet aginst the spinners was spectacular. I will never forget Sachin waltzing down the track and away from the stumps to the pitch of a viciously turning Shane Warne legbreak pitched on the rough of a fourth day Chepauk dustbowl and hitting it deep into the crowd over longoff!! Sachins backfoot coverdrive, nothing more than a push actually, but played with immaculate timing and placement is a sight to behold. But the shot that takes the cake is his straight drive, both on and off. It is worth a million just to see the stunned look on the fast bowler's face when a good delivery pitched up (and sometimes banged short) is met with an apparently defensive but dead straight bat played with a strong bottom hand, sending the ball racing past the bowler to the boundary.
The Sachin of the 21st century may not be as sensational and scintillating as the Sachin of the 90s. The naked aggression and flair have been replaced by methodology and clinical efficiency. He no longer takes your breath away like he used to but but the runs still flow at a quick strike rate. As he showed in the last tour of Australia where he slammed two tons acoring 497 runs, he still has a lot left in the tank, fitness permitting. I suspect the elusive ODI world cup is whats driving him. Dont be surprised if Sachin carries on till the 2011 world cup, a strong possibility since he'll only be 38 then. If he does so, he would have accumulated a pile of 15000 runs and 50 test centuries, a record that should stand the test of Ponting and Time. Way to go Sachin!!
Posts
