The Tendulkar Legend
Rajdeep Sardesai
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
One of the great advantages of being a young reporter is that you have far more freedom to allow the pen and the mike to wander. When I joined The Times of India as an apprentice assistant editor in 1988, I usually had the afternoons to myself. On one such November afternoon in Mumbai, I decided to go to the Wankhede stadium to watch a Ranji trophy match between Mumbai and Gujarat.
Normally, Ranji trophy matches can be deadly dull. This one though had a special attraction: Sachin Tendulkar was making his first-class debut. We had all seen Tendulkar on the maidan. But would he make the transition to the next level, especially as he was then at an age where most school cricketers have only just begun to play club cricket.
We needn't have worried. For two delightful hours that afternoon, Tendulkar played with the joy and abandon that only someone who has never known failure can possess. The Gujarat bowling attack might have been limited, but don't forget that this was a batsman who still hadn't used the razor batting against bowlers twice his age. Yet, from the very first ball, Tendulkar played as if his curly locks and chubby cheeks were only meant to disguise the power of his strokeplay.
That evening when I trudged back to office, I asked my editor, Darryl D'Monte whether I could write a piece on what I had just seen. The sports desk has always seen the sports page as proprietorial. Darryl was kind enough to allow me to write on Tendulkar, and even kinder to carry it on the front page.
I still carry the clipping. It was titled: The New Star of Indian Cricket and began with a rather lyrical flourish: Winter may be in the air, but we have seen an early spring in Mumbai. For years from now, those of us who were privileged to see a little genius emerge will be saying I was there when Sachin Tendulkar made his first-class cricket debut. He is someone who will break every batting record.
Now, when I look back at that article, it is not so much with a sense of smugness at having got it right, but with the realization of just how much pleasure Tendulkar has given us by his presence on the cricket field over the last sixteen years. Many talented cricketers have scored centuries in their first match only to fade away later. But talent alone is not enough to succeed consistently at the highest level. What you really need is the talent to be matched by dedication and self-belief. Tendulkar, bless the lord, had it in oodles.
I still recall watching with a shiver Tendulkar being hit on the head by a Waqar bouncer on his first trip to Pakistan. There can be no more intimidating place for an Indian to play cricket than Pakistan, and here was a sixteen year old facing up to one of the most feared bowlers in the world.
Many good players have had their confidence severely dented after a knock on the head. Had Tendulkar been pushed into the test team too early was the obvious concern. We neednt have worried again. Not only did Tendulkar battle on to score a half century, a few days later, he hit four sixes in one Abdul Qadir over. It was the first of many authoritative statements that Tendulkar would make throughout his career. Years later, I asked Tendulkar whether he had been ever worried after the Waqar incident that he would not make it in the big league. With an impassive look, he said, I only wanted to succeed. Maybe, the bouncer made my resolve even greater. No lengthy explanations, just simple, straightforward stuff, typical of a man who prefers to play with a straight bat.
Over the years that bat has scored a staggering seventy-plus international centuries. It really is an imposing achievement, especially when you consider the wear and tear of the modern game. Just think of it. The legendary Sunil Gavaskar scored just one one-day hundred, Sachin has scored 37 and we are still counting. You could argue that he's played much more international one dayers, but that's precisely what makes his achievement so special.
When you play cricket round the year, one-day and test, the demands are enormous. Remarkably, Sachin has never appeared to be weighed down by the constant expectation, except perhaps for a brief period when he was India captain. Like that other great cricketer Garfield Sobers, captaincy was the one bridge too far for Sachin.
Maybe, his sheer obsession with perfecting the art of batting meant that he never could summon the additional appetite required to captain the country. When you set high standards for yourself, you expect those around you to measure up. When they don't, you can get frustrated all too easily. That's perhaps what happened with Tendulkar the captain.
And yet, this minor flaw apart, few will grudge Tendulkar his place in cricket history. For many of us cricket nuts who entered our teens watching the defensive mastery of Gavaskar, Tendulkar's attacking instincts allowed us to complete the transition to manhood.
There are many moments that stick in the mind. His complete annihilation of Shane Warne at the Brabourne stadium, one of those rare moments in sport when genius clashed with genius and left all of us spellbound. Then, the wonderful display in Sharjah when he single-handedly destroyed the Aussies. Not to forget the six over point of Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup game against Pakistan. It was a shot that ended, as Ramachandra Guha aptly remarked, 'a decade of inferiority against Pakistan.
Sometimes, we don't realize how blessed we are. We live in an age of all-pervasive cynicism, an era where politicians accused of murder can go to jail one day, find an honourable place in the cabinet one day. This is an era of overnight celebrities, of faceless wonders who adorn our page three with uniform regularity.
This is a period of acute mindlessness, where an entire social class wants to simply drift from one party to another, where a novelist is reduced to a soundbite and philosophy to feelgood gurus. Which is why we must treasure what Tendulkar has given us. He is a celebrity in the true sense of the term, someone who has combined skill and hard work to emerge as an international champion. In a world of myth-making, he is the real thing.
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
One of the great advantages of being a young reporter is that you have far more freedom to allow the pen and the mike to wander. When I joined The Times of India as an apprentice assistant editor in 1988, I usually had the afternoons to myself. On one such November afternoon in Mumbai, I decided to go to the Wankhede stadium to watch a Ranji trophy match between Mumbai and Gujarat.
Normally, Ranji trophy matches can be deadly dull. This one though had a special attraction: Sachin Tendulkar was making his first-class debut. We had all seen Tendulkar on the maidan. But would he make the transition to the next level, especially as he was then at an age where most school cricketers have only just begun to play club cricket.
We needn't have worried. For two delightful hours that afternoon, Tendulkar played with the joy and abandon that only someone who has never known failure can possess. The Gujarat bowling attack might have been limited, but don't forget that this was a batsman who still hadn't used the razor batting against bowlers twice his age. Yet, from the very first ball, Tendulkar played as if his curly locks and chubby cheeks were only meant to disguise the power of his strokeplay.
That evening when I trudged back to office, I asked my editor, Darryl D'Monte whether I could write a piece on what I had just seen. The sports desk has always seen the sports page as proprietorial. Darryl was kind enough to allow me to write on Tendulkar, and even kinder to carry it on the front page.
I still carry the clipping. It was titled: The New Star of Indian Cricket and began with a rather lyrical flourish: Winter may be in the air, but we have seen an early spring in Mumbai. For years from now, those of us who were privileged to see a little genius emerge will be saying I was there when Sachin Tendulkar made his first-class cricket debut. He is someone who will break every batting record.
Now, when I look back at that article, it is not so much with a sense of smugness at having got it right, but with the realization of just how much pleasure Tendulkar has given us by his presence on the cricket field over the last sixteen years. Many talented cricketers have scored centuries in their first match only to fade away later. But talent alone is not enough to succeed consistently at the highest level. What you really need is the talent to be matched by dedication and self-belief. Tendulkar, bless the lord, had it in oodles.
I still recall watching with a shiver Tendulkar being hit on the head by a Waqar bouncer on his first trip to Pakistan. There can be no more intimidating place for an Indian to play cricket than Pakistan, and here was a sixteen year old facing up to one of the most feared bowlers in the world.
Many good players have had their confidence severely dented after a knock on the head. Had Tendulkar been pushed into the test team too early was the obvious concern. We neednt have worried again. Not only did Tendulkar battle on to score a half century, a few days later, he hit four sixes in one Abdul Qadir over. It was the first of many authoritative statements that Tendulkar would make throughout his career. Years later, I asked Tendulkar whether he had been ever worried after the Waqar incident that he would not make it in the big league. With an impassive look, he said, I only wanted to succeed. Maybe, the bouncer made my resolve even greater. No lengthy explanations, just simple, straightforward stuff, typical of a man who prefers to play with a straight bat.
Over the years that bat has scored a staggering seventy-plus international centuries. It really is an imposing achievement, especially when you consider the wear and tear of the modern game. Just think of it. The legendary Sunil Gavaskar scored just one one-day hundred, Sachin has scored 37 and we are still counting. You could argue that he's played much more international one dayers, but that's precisely what makes his achievement so special.
When you play cricket round the year, one-day and test, the demands are enormous. Remarkably, Sachin has never appeared to be weighed down by the constant expectation, except perhaps for a brief period when he was India captain. Like that other great cricketer Garfield Sobers, captaincy was the one bridge too far for Sachin.
Maybe, his sheer obsession with perfecting the art of batting meant that he never could summon the additional appetite required to captain the country. When you set high standards for yourself, you expect those around you to measure up. When they don't, you can get frustrated all too easily. That's perhaps what happened with Tendulkar the captain.
And yet, this minor flaw apart, few will grudge Tendulkar his place in cricket history. For many of us cricket nuts who entered our teens watching the defensive mastery of Gavaskar, Tendulkar's attacking instincts allowed us to complete the transition to manhood.
There are many moments that stick in the mind. His complete annihilation of Shane Warne at the Brabourne stadium, one of those rare moments in sport when genius clashed with genius and left all of us spellbound. Then, the wonderful display in Sharjah when he single-handedly destroyed the Aussies. Not to forget the six over point of Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup game against Pakistan. It was a shot that ended, as Ramachandra Guha aptly remarked, 'a decade of inferiority against Pakistan.
Sometimes, we don't realize how blessed we are. We live in an age of all-pervasive cynicism, an era where politicians accused of murder can go to jail one day, find an honourable place in the cabinet one day. This is an era of overnight celebrities, of faceless wonders who adorn our page three with uniform regularity.
This is a period of acute mindlessness, where an entire social class wants to simply drift from one party to another, where a novelist is reduced to a soundbite and philosophy to feelgood gurus. Which is why we must treasure what Tendulkar has given us. He is a celebrity in the true sense of the term, someone who has combined skill and hard work to emerge as an international champion. In a world of myth-making, he is the real thing.
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