Sport
Smashin' Sachin
by Paul Lewis
Why Sachin Tendulkar has the cricket world talking.
After the recent series against Australia, when he became the first man to score 12,000 runs in test cricket, India’s Sachin Tendulkar had to withstand the usual flurry of enquiries about his retirement.
Worse, his feat sparked futile arguments among fans and media about whether Tendulkar, even though he headed the list of those who have made the most test runs in the history of the game, was indeed the greatest.
Debate rages. Some feel that although Tendulkar has the edge in statistics, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is a better batter in the modern game and will eventually overhaul Tendulkar.
Comparisons are indeed odious, and they’re influenced by so many variables as to make judgment impossible. That is how it should be. Tendulkar and Ponting are both great batsmen, and greatness is surely not measured in degrees. The only concession I’d make to comparisons is to answer the question: who would you get to bat if your life was at stake? The answer to that, in my opinion, is neither Ponting nor Tendulkar – it’s another Australian skipper, Allan Border, who did not have the creative talent of the other two, nor the beauty of stroke, but had a heart the size of Chicago. If you needed a century to save or win a match (or a life), Border would stick to the crease like a limpet and defy everyone to get him out.
But the statistical side of the game remains as good a guide as any, particularly as Ponting and Tendulkar have been facing off against each other in the recent test series, with the honours very much going to the Indian.
During that series, Tendulkar not only passed 12,000 runs, he also became the first to score 40 test centuries with that superb effort against the Australians in the fourth test. It was 109, scored off 188 balls and with 12 fours, hardly the stuff of genius. But it steered India out of trouble into a series-winning position, and it contained flashes of his superb strokemaking.
Some have felt Tendulkar has slipped into a conservative style in the latter part of his career. Others have gone even further, saying the little master’s batting was aimed only to get to the top of the statistical heap and he had abandoned all thoughts of beauty and style; the artist surrendering to the pragmatic.
No batsman, especially one at 35, could hope to keep the quality shown by Tendulkar in 1993 when, at 19, he hit that marvellous 148 not out against Australia – Craig McDermott, Bruce Reid, Merv Hughes, Shane Warne and all. It was an astonishing innings of colour and dash, a teenager’s almost unthinking connection of innate talent with occasion without appearing to feel the pressure.
As he showed against Australia in this last series – and he has now scored 10 of his 40 centuries against them – he retains the dash, but he has added a touch of dogged as well.
More important, he shows no sign of retiring. After the recent series, Indian legspinner Anil Kumble and batsman Sourav Ganguly retired – and fellow batsmen Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman are expected to go soon. If Tendulkar retires, the heart of India’s test team will have been ripped out. India needs him and Tendulkar now seems to be resisting the urge to go.
“My body is doing fine and at the moment I am not thinking of any plans to retire,” Tendulkar said. “Normally I prefer to think of the present, not of what I am going to do in the next four, five or six years of my life.”
Four, five or six? There’s no question he has the talent to play until 41; it’s only the will that might be in question.
If he plays that long, the pursuing Ponting will not get near him statistically (he is nearly 2000 runs behind but is also two years younger), because Tendulkar will set all manner of marks and records.
Greatness? You better believe it.
