Why it had to be Tendulkar?

Thursday, 25 February 2010


India is rightly celebrating Sachin Tendulkar's accent to the hitherto unscaled height of a Double Century in a 50 overs a side International Match, popularly called ODI. Mamta Banerjee has given us some reasons to smile. But I doubt if anyone was following her Rail-budget at all. Almost an entire nation was glued to the Neo Cricket or DD channel to follow the progress of the most famous son towards the summit.

Here's a confession. For the first time in a career of 15 years; yours truly kept patients waiting for a good 17 minutes last evening. I simply couldn't have missed the event 'Live' because I had predicted it in the afternoon looking at the way 'The Old Chap' was batting from the first over. I apologize to my profession and to the nice souls who waited for me, when I was waiting for the 'History in making'!

This event, this conquest and this phenomenon will take a long time to sink in. It looked all too simple when he scampered for that single to point of the fourth ball of that last over. But was it as simple?

True, the pitch was a belter; but why others couldn't do it? There have been bigger team scores in ODIs, but not a double-ton before. Many players have faced more balls than the 147 he faced, but the nearest anyone came was 194.

I thought over this last evening and through this morning, and I realized there are "more than many reasons". There have been many contenders to scale the summit and some pretenders too. But ultimately it had to be Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. And here are the reasons...

Glen Turner: He had played in an era when a score of 170 was enormous in itself. Let us salute him for that. But he never ever went past 150.

Kapil Dev: It was a day of 'Destiny' for Indian Captain and Devastation for the Zimbabwe. The 175 not out was a special knock that prevented India getting knocked out of 1983 World Cup. The rest is 'His-story'. But 'Miracles' happen once in a life-time.

Vivian Richards: The only player of that era who was capable of reaching the summit. But he played for the almighty West Indies. He never really got to bat long enough to score 200 in an ODI. And let me repeat, the summit was just about being imagined at that time.

Gary Kirsten, M. S. Dhoni, Mathew Hayden and Saurav Ganguly have gone as far as the 180+. Sachin himself was there before in 1999. But none of these managed to scale the heights. In fact, they didn't deserve too! Hindsight is a great thing indeed! Tendulkar had made a gallant 175 against Australia in 2009, only to see his team fall apart after his fall.

Sanath Jayasuriya made a superb 189 against India. But he took 161 balls for this knock. That is more than 50% of the total balls. Sanath was definitely special, but was not 'The Chosen One'!

As much as I would like to admire C. K. Coventry, the quality of Cricket between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe is of such low quality that it would have been travesty of justice if he were to get there first.

Saeed Anwar played an epoch making innings against India on that hot Chennai summer day in 1997. He sunk India in the process. He took only 146 balls to reach 194. But it was an innings played thanks largely to the 'Nice Guys' that India were at that time. Anwar was carrying an injury from the previous match. He hid it and played his 'Big' knock with the help of a 'Runner' almost throughout. Cricketing Gods were not willing to confer the tag of immortality on him; and rightly so!

And then the Pretenders...

Brian Lara was a man of big centuries. But somehow, he remained an under-achiever in ODIs and rightly didn't ever come close to the peak.

Ricky Ponting is a small built man with a big talent and a bigger mouth. He has threatened many a times to score big. But fortunately the summit has rightly eluded him, though the Cricketing Gods have been most benevolent to Australia.

Christopher Gayle can create 'Gail Storms' when he gets going. But the situation always has been quite silly. Either his team will get all-out leaving him not out on 199. Or when the team mates clicked, Gayle force failed!

Virendar Sehwag is a paradox beyond commonsense. Here is a man who has 2 triple hundreds and four double hundreds in Tests. Most of his big innings have come in quick time and against quality opposition. He gets to open the batting for India and can bat all 50 overs. He wagged his tongue ferociously when he wanted to score the first double hundred in ODIs. He has never even scored 150 after that! His expertise in manufacturing shots in ODIs and finding newer ways of getting out have limited his accent. But there perhaps is 'Poetic Justice' in it!

Shaheed Afridi is such a gifted player; he can do anything including destroying opposition. He holds the record for the fastest ODI century. He has scored 2 of the 3 fastest ODI hundreds. He might require just about 75 - 80 balls to score 200 runs on his day. But his problem has been 'Shaheed Afridi'. He destroys himself rather than the opposition and has perhaps 'never' played 75 balls in any match.

Poetic Justice

Here is a man who has played over 400 ODIs in 20 years. He has scored centuries 45 times before. He has more scores of 150+ than anyone else. He has won more matches for his country and more Man-of-the-Match awards than anyone could imagine. He is sitting on a mountain of runs. Over 30000 and still going strong. As I have mentioned before, we have lost count of the records he has broken or created.

And this one, an ODI Double Hundred was an un-chartered territory! Anyone else reaching there was just unfair! So the destiny had chosen a very special afternoon for 'Her most Favorite' kid to scale the summit. And the 'Poetic Justice' comes in the fact that it was not against Bangladesh, Zimbabwe or Namibia; but against South Africa! That South Africa which boasts of the best bowler in the world!

Everyone please stand up and applaud the 'Greatest Cricketer Ever' to walk this Planet. We are a blessed lot who lived in the times of people like Sachin Tendulkar and Roger Federer!