The Hindu Business Line : The hurt and pain... when Tendulkar walks away

"In the days gone by, if there was a crowd on the street looking at a cricket game on the TV, it could be only because India was winning or Tendulkar was playing," my good friend Ashok Reddy told me, who knows more about sports than many sports journalists. Today, the same crowd is breaking the TV set and booing at the Master when he walks out to bat. This writer has walked off the TV set in sorrow, when Tendulkar was felled by a bowler.

Somehow, one cannot even today accept that a fast or spin bowler can spray the stumps with Tendulkar standing in front. It was on a midnight run from Nagpur to Navegaon that one heard the radio commentator passing on the information that Tendulkar was bowled out for zero in the critical match against Sri Lanka at the World Cup 2007 in the Caribbean. That night one did not sleep.

Tendulkar walking away with a zero against his name probably hurt more than India losing. And then followed bitterness. Indians do not have the patience to be human beings. Their gods have not taught them. Somewhere in an essay Suresh Menon says Tendulkar is like the Taj. Just a day ago, my good friend Tariq Engineer of Wall Street Journal presented me a book The 100 Greatest Cricketers by Geoff Armstrong with a foreword by Steve Waugh. "You will like this book as Tendulkar is named in the World's best XI ever," Tariq told me.

The cover flap carries an interesting remark: "Almost 2,500 men have appeared in Test cricket, from the inaugural Test played in March 1877 to today. To reduce this list to the best 100 is an imposing task, but it is also one that is guaranteed to provoke argument among those with an eye for the game's history and its greatest players."

Steve Waugh, in his foreword, finds it hard to believe that "there is no room for Gordon Greenidge, Courtney Walsh, Anil Kumble, Shaun Pollock, Stuart MacGill or Jack Russell in the final 100. Jack, to me, was a victim of some misguided selection policies during his career, which meant he didn't play as much Test cricket as he should have. He was blessed with phenomenal hands and intuition that made him the equal of Ian Healy in my era. Stuart has simply been unlucky, having to compete against the genius of Shane Warne."

Geoff Armstrong has selected 10 Test teams with Doug Walters of Australia as the 100th man. The teams selected, in proposed batting order, are: First XI: WG Grace, Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Graeme Pollock, Garry Sobers, Adam Gilchrist, Imran Khan, Malcolm Marshall, Shane Warne, Sydney Barnes. The second XI: Len Hutton, Victor Trumper, Viv Richards, Wally Hammond, Brian Lara, Ian Botham, Alan Knott, Richard Hadlee, Dennis Lillee, Fred Spofforth, Muttiah Muralitharan.

Armstrong was discussing the teams "with a former Sheffield Shield cricketer, writer and all-round fine bloke, Neil Marks." Marks asked him to "run that first team of yours by me again." "Grace and Hobbs to open the batting," Armstrong replied confidently. It had taken a while to settle on my top XI, but now I truly felt that I'd nailed it. `Bradman, Tendulkar, Pollock, Sobers, Gilchrist, Imran, Marshall, Warne and Barnes.' "No Miller, eh?" reacted Neil Marks and asked "And what's your second side?"

Armstrong spelt out the team. "Hutton and Trumper — I don't care how good Gavaskar was against the West Indies. I've got to go for Victor — Viv Richards, Hammond, Lara, Botham, Knott, Hadlee, DK Lillee, Spofforth and Murali." He adds: "There was a silence for a moment, and then Neil said bluntly, "That side would beat your first team." Would it, one wonders. The match should be held in Eden Gardens, Kolkata, and my bet will be on the first team even if Eden is not a favourite of Tendulkar.

Then comes the short pieces on the players. Today, it is quite appropriate to read Armstrong on Tendulkar when he writes: "It is remarkable how quickly the cricket world moves these days. It seems so long since fans were debating which of Brian Lara, Steve Waugh or Sachin Tendulkar was the best batsman in the world. Yet it was only eight years ago. By a strong consensus, the winner was Tendulkar. However, the little Indian master was not so dominant in 2004 and 2005, to the point that a number of cricketers — not least Lara, India's Rahul Dravid and Australia's Ricky Ponting — were rated ahead of him. It was as if the reasons Tendulkar became known as the `Little Maestro' had been forgotten."

Yes, for quite some time this writer forgot. In 1988, Ravi Shastri, the manager of today's Indian cricket team, told the world of a Tendulkar. "We have a young batsman in Bombay called Sachin Tendulkar, who is sent from upstairs to play the game. He is only 15, a right-handed bat, five foot four inches tall, but I tell you, he's going to be a great player," boasted Ravi Shastri. This writer has never liked the cricket of Ravi Shastri, who reduced batting and bowling to a graceless, body distortion.

The essayist dwells on the debate that Tendulkar has never played to win and that he has never played a Laxman knock of 281 to get India past Australia of Steve Waugh. Yet, Sachin has scored 14 hundreds (seven in Tests and seven in ODIs) against Aussies in the last 15 years.

"And while only 11 of his Test centuries have come in Indian victories, this compares favourably with Gavaskar, who scored only six hundreds in Tests that India won. India is not a team used to winning. Perhaps most significantly of all, in Tests India have won, Tendulkar's batting average is 65.28. In Tests lost, it is just 36.20. Few batsmen have been more important to their side. ... . As good as Lara, Dravid and Ponting have been in the 21st century, they have not yet come close to the dazzling heights reached by the Little Maestro."

Is it not sufficient reason for Sachin to say bye to ball and bat?

P. Devarajan

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The hurt and pain... when Tendulkar walks away