An end of an Innings… Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar has been the greatest sports icon for India and he inspired Indians from all walks of life. I am just one among the millions who love, admire and awed by the talent of Sachin Tendulkar on the cricketing field. For long time he was the only sports superstar that we had to boast about. Saying this I am not trying to ignore the accolades of our other sporting stars like Vishwanathan Anand, Vijay Amritraj, Prakash Padukone, Milka singh, PT Usha and others. While they were great none of them achieved anything close to what Sachin has achieved in their respective sports. They were always the brides maid never the bride. We can argue at length that cricket has much more budgets, funds and support than any other sport in India, but the fact remains that  we are a cricket crazy nation and that is the only sport where we compete at the highest level. Other than cricket I can not really think of any sport where we would be called a top class team. So why crib?

 While there are few skeptics out there who believe that there are other who were better than him;  that he only plays for records or he should have retired couple of years back, I choose to ignore them as people who speak without out facts in hand.For those who play the tune that Sachin was never a match winner and played for his centuries, pls check this analysis of his win ratio for those games he hit a century, the links are given below.

(“Another Sachin century, another match India couldn’t win…” is there merit in that statistic.) 

Centuries going down the drain….Sachin and his 12 non productive centuries

Those who are convinced that he plays for the records, I just want to add “he plays and the records follow him”. What i really like about Sachin Tendulkar is his humility. The fact that he has been humble all his live even after what he has acheived is in itself a great achievement as a human being.In the two decades we have not come come across any controversy, loose gossip or incidents that have always been associated with super stars.He is always calm, composed and always speaks with  dignity that befitted someone who is not only a great sportstar but a good human too. He is someone who can be a sporting idol for current generation and generations to come.

 As his innings comes to a close and and he walks back in to the pavilion one last time, I thought is is just right to compile all that he has achieved on the green circle. Given below are 200 facts about Sachin that you may like to know.

(Compiled from internet)

1. His father named him after the legendary music director Sachin Dev Burman.

2. During his school days, he grew his hair and tied a band around it to copy his idol, tennis legend John McEnroe.

3. While growing up, Sachin would ask his friend Ramesh Pardhe to dip a rubber ball in water and hurl it at him to see the wet marks left on the bat to know whether he had middled the ball!

A Very Very Special (V.V.S.)Laxman

There are Batsmen and there are artists, just like a shot that sends a ball flying over the mid-off to cross the boundary and a gentle flick of the ball from the off stump that send the ball racing to the square leg boundary . There are a lot of great batsmen with amazing stats in international cricket, but the artists are endangered species. VVS Laxman   is one of those artists on the endangered list who just got extinct.

Of all the supremely gifted Indian stroke makers of the last two decades, arguably none have dazzled in quite the manner of the man dubbed ‘Very Very Special’. When in full flow Laxman’s effortless grace at the wicket is unmatched in the world game and while he hasn’t consistently matched the run-scoring feats of his contemporaries Tendulkar and Dravid (and there’s no disgrace in that), he has produced innings of such class and significance that his status as one of the modern era’s most gifted technicians is secured. Like other Indian artist of yesteryears notably Gundappa Viswanath, Azhar, and Dravid in recent years VVS would not only bring India out of its self-inflected batting woes , he would always do that in style, there was always beauty in the way he approached the job he is assigned. Wristy, willowy and sinuous, he can match – sometimes even better – Tendulkar for stroke play. His on-side game is comparable to his idol Azharuddin’s, yet he is decidedly more assured on the off side and has the rare gift of being able to hit the same ball to either side. He truly justifies his dressing room nickname “VVS…Very Very Special”

VVS affinity with Australia seems to be legendary.  A lot has been said and even more written about his 281 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata in 2001, when he helped India win after being forced to follow on, and his 73 not out at Mohali in 2010, when he overcame a sore back and guided his team to a thrilling one-wicket triumph while batting with tail-enders, both against Australia. He then spoiled Steve Waugh’s farewell Test series. A backs-to-the-wall 303-run stand with Rahul Dravid sets up the famous victory in Adelaide before a dazzling 178 in Sydney and a triple-century partnership with Sachin Tendulkar gives India a chance to seal the series

The Australians give him a rare compliment by acknowledging that it is not only difficult to ball but and almost impossible to set a field for VVS, he can hit the same ball to either sides of the field with the same effort. His affinity for Australia started early. In his first outing with the India Under-19s, he averaged 110.25 in three Tests against the visiting Australian U-19 team, which includes Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and Andrew Symonds. He ends his career next to Sachin as second largest runs scored by an Indian against Australia.

He was a master of winning loosing battles; his fourth innings specials gave us hope for a win or a draw  even in some hopeless conditions. Chasing a testing fourth-innings target of 257 in Colombo, Laxman eases to an unbeaten 103. After being four down for 62, India canters to a five-wicket win. Next time it was rescuing the team from even deeper problems. Chasing 216 against Australia, India were 124 for 8 when Laxman put on his Superman cape again, scoring an undefeated 73 to steer India to a one-wicket victory. For me even his 96 against South Africa in a low scoring 2nd Innings was one that defined him as India’s finest artist. In a match where the second highest score of a batsman was 39, VVS was able to muster a 38 and 96 to secure the match for India.

He was an orthodox player with some very unorthodox shots. With a large repertoire of shots VVS could have been a great ODI player, but for some unexplainable reason he was never able to maintain his position in the team. I was really surprised to learn that in his entire test career Laxman hit only 5 sixes. It is, of course, as a classical Test batsman that Laxman will always be spoken of in glowing terms by those with a sense of art and aesthetic, beauty and poetry, perfection and style.

I believe he never got what he deserved, like the Unknown Soldier, he came and performed and went back. He was the soldier who was lost among the war heroes of his time. When the blaster, master and the wall failed, he was there to get India out of its peril.  It makes me sad that he retired without much fanfare; I wish he was there to sign off in style with NZ series in India. He would always be remembered for his touch of genius and as a perfect gentleman.

Olympics…Poster from 1896..2012

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In Tendulkar country

In Tendulkar country.

An American writer new to cricket, experiences the first couple of weeks of the World Cup, navigating the madness of a billion fans and chasing the soul of the game.  An exception writer and a great story to see Cricket from the perspective of an outsider. This is a brilliant story……..

Rahul Dravid’s speech at the Sir Donald Bradman Oration in Canberra

This is a copy of the speech. This is just amazing.  It is a long read so make time for it and read it when you have time both to read and contemplate. It is one of the finest words that has ever come out of a WALL. This is what makes him the finest ambassador of Indian Cricket.

Thank you for inviting me to deliver the Bradman Oration; the respect and the regard that came with the invitation to speak tonight, is deeply appreciated.

I realise a very distinguished list of gentlemen have preceded me in the ten years that the Bradman Oration has been held. I know that this Oration is held every year to appreciate the life and career of Sir Don Bradman, a great Australian and a great cricketer. I understand that I am supposed to speak about cricket and issues in the game – and I will.

Yet, but first before all else, I must say that I find myself humbled by the venue we find ourselves in. Even though there is neither a pitch in sight, nor stumps or bat and balls, as a cricketer, I feel I stand on very sacred ground tonight. When I was told that I would be speaking at the National War Memorial, I thought of how often and how meaninglessly, the words ‘war’, ‘battle’, ‘fight’ are used to describe cricket matches.

Yes, we cricketers devote the better part of our adult lives to being prepared to perform for our countries, to persist and compete as intensely as we can – and more. This building, however, recognises the men and women who lived out the words – war, battle, fight – for real and then gave it all up for their country, their lives left incomplete, futures extinguished.

The people of both our countries are often told that cricket is the one thing that brings Indians and Australians together. That cricket is our single common denominator.

India’s first Test series as a free country was played against Australia in November 1947, three months after our independence. Yet the histories of our countries are linked together far more deeply than we think and further back in time than 1947.

We share something else other than cricket. Before they played the first Test match against each other, Indians and Australians fought wars together, on the same side. In Gallipoli, where, along with the thousands of Australians, over 1300 Indians also lost their lives. In World War II, there were Indian and Australian soldiers in El Alamein, North Africa, in the Syria-Lebanon campaign, in Burma, in the battle for Singapore.

Before we were competitors, Indians and Australians were comrades. So it is only appropriate that we are here this evening at the Australian War Memorial, where along with celebrating cricket and cricketers, we remember the unknown soldiers of both nations.

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