There must be only 11 guys in the world right now that would be ecstatic and more than anything thankful that they would not be on the same ground as Sachin and they are the Pakistan cricket team now touring in India. Keeping aside their sense of relief that they don’t have to bowl or field Tendulkar they would certainly be saddened that they are denied the chance to touch a ball that is blessed to kiss Sachin’s bat.
India, being a country of diverse faith it is better not to talk or write about any particular faith but overarching every faith is a not so pseudo religion called Cricket that has been the invisible glue that brings a nation of one billion to a perfect alignment. At the helm of this religion is Sachin Tendulkar - a god, a demigod or an excessively gifted yet a humble human being.
If a billion pairs of eyes that did not comply with the need to flicker were fixed upon Everest I am sure even Everest would evaporate in matter of seconds; But for a man who is just 5 ft 5 in, Sachin just did not endure the gaze of billion people he also carried the hope and prayers of billion people not just once but a staggering 463 times. More often than not he succeeded in answering all the prayers and managed to put a smile on a billion faces.
Like a magician who pulled the bunny from the hat, Sachin pulled out one stunning knock after another. He set the records just so he could break them. A possessed man who made the field his or rather who made the game his. At 39 he still looks like a little kid and his kid like attributes end there. Padded up, hands in gloves wrapped greedily around an assault weapon that weighed over 1.5 kilos he was a disaster waiting to happen for the opponents. In his conquest of 18K plus runs in ODI he made 49 centuries and a mammoth 96 half centuries. I have not seen Sir Don Bradman playing, but I find it really difficult to process the notion that Sachin Tendulkar can be given a second spot.
Watching Sachin play is like watching a superhero only the superhero is not a batman but a batsman. What is not possible collectively for 10 other players is a thing of slightness to Sachin. A player who literally was capable of controlling the heart beat and blood pressure of billion people. When you come to think of it, he was capable of pulling people away from their own life so they could witness just another day of his royal brilliance. I am not sure if it is medically possible but I am quite certain that there are people out there, millions and millions of them who are addicted to the grand event called Sachin.
Asking me which is the best ever innings from Sachin is like asking a bank burglar which is the best ever bank to break in to. We all are greedy when it comes to watching Sachin, we want more and no amount of watching Sachin would satiate our appetite but nevertheless I am going to pick the most obvious one, his knock against Australia in Sharjah. A day when god wanted to prevent India from reaching the finals by sending a sandstorm, a day when the god with the bat had a different plan and unleashed his wrath and no sandstorm or any other natural force was going to come between him and his gift to his countrymen. When I think of this match the immediate thing that comes to my mind is how Warney went on to say how this knock time and time again gave him nightmares. It is only fair to say that Tendilya took the attack to the opposition and this generally involved torturing, tormenting and perhaps behind the scenes, reducing the bowlers to tears like little girls. Well, when Sachin is playing and if you are playing you wanted to be in his team; Of course when you are not in his team you better hope the god has a soft corner for you.
Like any of us Sachin’s career was defined by a sinusoidal wave but because he had a higher rate of success he constantly came under the magnifying glasses of media and sports commentators and he was not expected to fail i.e. getting out in 90s without making a ton was neither accepted nor expected. For a player who has contributed to the game so much there was no room for error. It is quite likely that no one else would come even close to what Sachin has accomplished. To me it looks like his records are here to stay, of course people say records are meant to be broken but to me it seems improbable that his records would ever be broken, at least not in our lifetimes and I can quite confidently say that he is the best batsman the game has produced so far.
For the last couple of years there has been lot of speculation on his retirement and it seemed that media was more interested in him calling it a day. I fail to understand why people would lobby to decommission a perfectly working run machine, having said that the decision to retire from ODI career is now Sachin’s and we are all absolutely confident that this is a decision that makes him happy.
Finally, cricket is not dead but it will not be the same again; people will still watch test cricket and if lucky the master would grant few more wishes and if you ask about ODI well people must prepare themselves to settle for some regular ODI originally designed for mortals before it was BATJACKED by Sachin.
I am no one to say that he is an accomplished player, I like anybody else would be stating a fact and no words can summarise the achievements of the master. I have not seen god but I have realised god when my wishes are granted and by extrapolating that to the billions and billions of prayers and wishes that were granted in the last 23 years without any doubt Sachin is the god of cricket.
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