Sachin Tendulkar: Bharat Ratna and beyond !

Anticipatory Bail: I am an ordinary Indian in love with Cricket. I harbor no ill-will against any Cricketer including Sachin Tendulkar. I have made my admiration for him more than obvious in the past. But it hurts to see the personality cult completely overshadowing the wonderful game in India.

I can never forget or overlook the fact that India missed an Asia Cup Final berth largely due to SRT's 100th 100 becoming more important to a nation than a win. But since 'some' SRT fans can go to ridiculous lengths and depths to defend him and revere him, I might have to guard myself and my family against attacks. I take that risk because for me Cricket is greater than Sachin Tendulkar.

People's overwhelming demand for 'Bharat Ratna' for Sachin Tendulkar stands Viratified. So it is just a formality and just a matter of time now. The 'Future God' of Indian Cricket has endorsed the 'Reigning God' and let us get ready to celebrate the 'Holy event'.

A lot of people believed the Cricket World Cup was lucky to have been held by Sachin Tendulkar and many more think Bharat Ratna will be honored by associating with SRT.

After meeting a lot of people and getting to the bottom of a million discussions, Dr. Balls our Cricket Crazy Indian has come up with a modifiable and further expandable list of honors to be conferred upon the God. He believes if we can make it to 100 without waiting for a whole year, that would be a great honor for all Indians. Here is the list...

Apart from the confirmed Bharat Ratna, Sachin Tendulkar should also be honored with following awards...

1] Dada Saheb Phalke Award: For his acting skills. The National awards and Filmfare awards are too small for him.

2] Jnan Peetha Award: Some day, he is going to write his memoirs, if and when he retires. The greatest honor for literary excellence should be his for taking. Why not hand it over to him right now as "Anticipatory Award" ?

3] Dronacharya Award: From Sehwag to Kohli to Bhajji to Arjun Tendulkar; everyone was inspired to play Cricket by SRT. Sunil Gavaskar was inspired by Tendulkar's genius even before he was born. Tendulkar should get this one with immediate effect.

4]  Param Veer Chakra: He has fought so many 'one man army' battles over the past 23 years for Team India. So the minimum recognition would be to decorate the 'Param Veer Chakra' with Sachin Tendulkar.

5] Tansen Award:  His name retrospectively inspired R. D. Burman's father to be named Sachin Dev Burman and India's music Diva Lata Mangeshkar is his fan. That should be qualification enough for SRT to receive the Tansen Award. And it is 'music' to the ears of millions of his followers when he says in his musical voice, "I have always played for the country and never for personal milestones" !

6] Emerging India Business Award: The pinnacle of business award should recognize the yeoman service rendered by SRT in the field of business. Selling Pepsi, running restaurants, selling second hand Ferrari [which he got with a duty waiver] and then selling just about anything his managers have suggested; he has done it all. And more importantly, thousands like Harsha Bhogle and Ravi Shastri to even Katy Perry have made a life and living out of praising Sachin Tendulkar.

7] Indian Council of Agricultural Research [ICAR] Award: SRT deserves this award. We don't have to give reasons for everything.

Those readers who don't want to kill me might as well suggest more awards to be honored by Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar !





SPun Doctor

100 Things that will happen Thanks to 100th 100 !

Finally 'THAT' thing is out of our system. 'THAT' was eating into us like a worm, like a Cancer and like a pain in the arse. That thing every second Indian was bothered by and which in turn used to bother every first Indian.

It was so bad, even our Finance Minister dished out a dead duck for a budget. It was in fact so bad, even Anna Hazare forgot to fast. It was so miserably bad that Kapil Sibal had become redundant and people had forgotten Digvijay Singh.

People hardly realized India lost 8 successive overseas tests by margins that got larger and larger. The whole team was busy thinking "Have I made it Large Enough ?". They couldn't even beat a quarter strength West Indies convincingly and mostly scraped through a home test series.

The retirement of Rahul Dravid was brushed off with, "Well of course, he was there too. Fine, let's say bye to him". During his press conference, more people were interested to know Rahul's opinion on when 'THAT' would happen ?"

We haven't measured if he lost 50 kilos, but the team certainly lost at least 25 runs thanks to the crawl. And 'THAT' celestial event has finally happened and it has not sunk in yet. But it did sink the team against Bangladesh and in turn out of the Asia Cup Final.

Virat Kohli can go on playing blinders to give India a chance to qualify for the Finals. But for most of us, only ONE thing mattered. It was 'THAT' milestone. India return home empty-handed with the aluminum spoon [Sri Lanka took the wooden spoon]. But what the heck ? We have the record, right ?

No Asia Cup, So what ? We have a Milestone !

But on the positive side; finally, well and truly the damned 100th 100 is done and over with. One man's milestone had become a millstone around the neck for 'Ten' more people inside the team and a billion outside. Here is a list of 100 things that are bound to happen now and we can say, "Thank You Sachin !"

1] Team India can play 'Normal' Cricket now and not be bothered by when 'THAT' would happen.

2] Suresh Raina will finally raise above the short ball and manage to keep it down..

3] Sachinists will finally realize there are 11 members in a Cricket team [hopefully].

4] Virat Kohli will carry the burden of the No. 3 and not only the 'Finger No. 3'

5] Some day in near future, when Sachin Tendulkar scores a 100, Team India will actually win a match.

6] Irfan Pathan will bowl 6 good balls in an over.

7] Virendar Sehwag will finally be dropped for non-performance and 'not merely be rested'.

8] Gautam Gambhir will begin to run sensibly; between the wickets I mean.

9] Dhoni will finally win a toss when it matters or even when it doesn't.

10] Team India will manage to draw an overseas test.

Since we all are already exhausted by a 100th 100, I don't want the readers [howsoever small the number might be] to suffer another torture. So here I 'retire', hoping to be at least 10 kilos lesser after this ordeal !

Congratulations Bangladesh for making the Finals of Asia Cup by beating 2 stronger teams convincingly. You deserve to be in the Final because you don't have anyone even closer to 10 centuries, leave alone 100. Good for you !

And Thank You Sachin !





SPun Doctor