Media reactions from around the world

[DomainK]

:punter: is all praises for Sachin.

Sachin Tendulkar's glorious 175 in the fifth limited-overs clash with Australia evoked memories of two magnificent innings from the little master against Steve Waugh's team in the 1998 Coca Cola Cup in Sharjah. The first was 143 from 131 balls in a pool match to sweep India into the final, the second was a magical 134 from 131 balls to win the tournament. In both cases Tendulkar was chasing under lights against the Australians, and on each occasion his command of the crease was absolute. Eleven years on and he did much the same to Ricky Ponting's side, only this time pushing even harder for longer, in search of an even taller target. That he fell short of victory was cruel. Even Ricky Ponting said: “when you get 175 in a one-day game it's not very often you don't win.'' Having made a fair few runs himself, Ponting was well-placed to weigh up the quality of Tendulkar's performance. “He's played a lot of good innings against Australia over the years, but you don't see that every day,'' Ponting said. “It was a terrific innings, especially when he lost a few wickets around him early, so the tendency when you lose wickets is to go back into your shell for a while, but I guess he and his team couldn't really afford him to do that. “He hit almost every ball in the middle of the bat.'' A young Ponting was in the side when Tendulkar played his two Sharjah innings, and could definitely see a parallel. “The tournament in Sharjah (in 1998) he got a big hundred in the last pool game and then a big hundred in the final as well, to take that tournament away from us, and this was a bit reminiscent of that,'' he said. “You could just see he was in a ball-striking sort of mood where he just stands up and hits through the line and hits everything in the middle. “His team needed him to play that way and he was outstanding, it was one of the great one-day innings that I've seen.'' Tendulkar was crestfallen that another masterpiece had fallen short of achieving team success, but he agreed it was one of his “better ones''. “I would say so,'' he said. “I was striking the ball pretty well, and the fact that we were chasing 351 ... there was constant pressure on us keeping up the run-rate. “We managed to do that, and took the game quite close.'' Source: http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,26313025-5018870,00.html

[DomainK]

Years ago I saw Michael Jordan’s last ever 40 point game. It was when he was with the Wizards. By halfway through the 3rd term it became obvious that no one in the stadium gave a **** about the result of the game. They were all there for Jordan, and since he was putting on a vintage display, the game just faded away. I have no idea what the result of the game was. I do remember some of Jordan’s reverse lay ups, some fade aways, and him pick pocketing Jason Kidd. After the game we got back to our Hostel and there were about 40 people with Jordan singlets on. I can only image that is what people will feel like today. Some people might remember the game, but even with Australia winning this becomes Sachin’s game. When Sachin caught White off the last ball of the innings, he threw the ball into the ground in a very pissed off manner. He knew India had played pretty ordinary to let Australia score 350. Sachin wasn’t the only one, Dhoni ran off the ground without his team mates, Yuvraj and Praveen Kumar were still in conversation about a piece of lazy assed fielding. The senior players knew that they had been gifted a weak Australian side and they were in danger of losing. Sehwag batted as he always does. Gautam City looked in an odd mood. Neither Dhoni or Yuvraj seemed quite on it. Raina had a lot of luck, but eventually went out to an ugly shot. Bhajji never got started. Jadeja kept pusihing the limits of sensible running. Praveen tried his hardest. Ashish and Patel were never going to get it done. Those were the ten dudes. A collection of **** hot batsmen who were made to look like dribbling fools compared to Sachin. He scored over half the runs, passed some unimportant milestone, seemed to be dragging Raina and Jadeja by the neck like kittens, and then eventually went out to a shot that wasn’t even thought of when he started playing. India didn’t deserve to win, but Sachin did. I wanted him to make 200 and win the game, but he came up short and had pretty much no help at all. I could go on about his innings, but he said it best. “I was striking the ball pretty well”. Yes, you were. Source: http://www.cricketwithballs.com/2009/11/05/sachin-and-10-other-dudes/

[DomainK]

Itzhak Perlman, the violin virtuoso who took his first bow at Carnegie Hall as an 18-year-old, once said: “For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them.” After Sachin Tendulkar’s first Test match in Karachi 20 years ago produced just 15 runs and five wicketless overs for 25, hardened cynics might have questioned the wisdom of thrusting a 16-year-old on to such a stage. First innings: Tendulkar at age 16, polishing his moves a few months before his international debut against Pakistan in 1989 that made him India’s youngest Test player. Parikh Mahendra / India Today A week later, in Faisalabad, there was nowhere to hide. When Tendulkar arrived at the crease to join his Mumbai teammate, Sanjay Manjrekar, India were in disarray at 101 for 4. In a column many years later, Wasim Akram wrote: “It was a lush green wicket, possibly the greenest I’ve seen in Pakistan, and Tendulkar was batting on 20-odd when a ball from me hit him. I immediately asked him if he was alright and he looked me in the eye and nodded. I was a 21-year-old then, so I did not give the matter much thought, but in retrospect that score of 50-odd was the first hint the world got about Tendulkar’s special talent.” For the world, it was a hint. For the boy himself, it was so much more. “My first innings was a disaster,” he said. “When I walked out at Faisalabad, I told myself that I would do my best to just stay at the wicket, even if I didn’t score runs.” He finished with 59, having stayed at the crease for a shade over 4 hours. And although it didn’t win the Test, or set the pulse racing, it meant a lot to someone thrown in at the deep end. “I said to myself, ‘You can handle this, it’s not a place where you don’t belong.’” In one of its special issues, Time magazine had Tendulkar’s debut at No. 4 in its list of Top 10 Sporting Moments, behind Michael Jordan’s The Shot (against the Cleveland Cavaliers), Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose being banned from baseball and Arsenal winning the English league title in the last minute of the 1988-89 season. In the years to come, you can take it for granted that thousands will claim that they were at the National Stadium on 15 November when he walked out in an India cap for the first time. In retrospect, it was certainly an I-was-there moment, though few could have imagined that Tendulkar would still be punching the ball through the covers two decades later. Perhaps we in India can’t really fathom the full extent of the adoration and expectation that he has had to deal with in that time. Matthew Hayden, another batting colossus of our age, gave voice to what many outsiders feel when he wrote: “His life seems to be a stillness in a frantic world and I admire his mental strength. When Tendulkar goes out to bat, it’s beyond chaos—it is a frantic appeal by a nation to one man.” Some, like Muhammad Ali, protected themselves with a veneer of loudmouthed arrogance. Others, like George Best, lost themselves in a haze of boozy, womanizing nights. With Tendulkar, the humility, the feeling that he considered himself truly fortunate to be doing what he did, never went away, even if it cost him any semblance of a normal life. “I could say that I didn’t get to do all those things that a normal teenager would do,” he told me once, “but then again, not many people get the opportunity to do what I do.” That awareness of the big picture was best illustrated in Steve Waugh’s final Test at SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) in January 2004. Twenty minutes before stumps, with Australia seemingly safe, Waugh—who had scripted a typically defiant 80 just when his team most needed it—swept a delivery from Anil Kumble to deep square leg, where Tendulkar wrapped his hands around it. As 40,000 Australians rose in unison, it took Tendulkar a moment to comprehend the significance of the occasion. No one batted an eyelid: (from left) Tendulkar waves to the crowd in Kolkata during the inauguration of the 1996 World Cup; hoisting the Sahara Cup in Toronto after his team beat Pakistan in 1997; with the Man of the Series trophy at the tri-nation championship final against Sri Lanka in Colombo in September. “Honestly, I wasn’t thinking that I had a hand in Steve Waugh’s last dismissal,” he said later. “I was thinking of how we could pull off the win. But once I realized that it was his last innings, I ran all the way from the boundary to congratulate him. I said, ‘You’ve made every Australian proud, and every cricketer admires you’. That was about it really, nothing more.” Just as Sunil Gavaskar was defined by his heroics against the all-conquering West Indies, so Tendulkar remains peerless because of the enormity of his achievements against Australia. Numbers matter in sport, but nothing counts quite as much as how you do against the best. With 10 Test centuries and eight one-day hundreds against the dominant team of his era, Tendulkar’s place in the pantheon is beyond dispute. More than cold statistics though, it’s the moments that will endure long after he’s put his bat away for the last time. That final over in the Hero Cup semi-final. The audacious assault on Shane Warne in Chennai. The cold-eyed targeting of Shoaib Akhtar at Centurion, South Africa, in 2003. That match-winning century in Chennai, just a fortnight after the streets in the vicinity of his restaurant in Mumbai had resembled war-torn Beirut. And most of all, Perth in February 1992. That magical 114 on a lightning-fast pitch, even as the team was routed by 300 runs. Watching the teenager stand on tiptoe and cut and drive with the panache of an old pro in baggy green, Merv Hughes, he of the walrus moustache and the colourful sledges, turned to Allan Border and said, “This little ***** is going to get more runs than you, AB.” He was right. Source: http://www.livemint.com/articles/2009/11/05193608/The-master-moments.html

[DomainK]

Did you know that it took 78 one-day internationals for Sachin Tendulkar to score a hundred? It’s an odd fact, that, considering he’s squeezed in another 44 since then, including a whopping 175 against Australia today. It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate Sachin Tendulkar properly. It’s like thinking about the vast emptiness of space or the vast emptiness of the modern urban lifestyle. It’s all too much to comprehend. What has Sachin actually achieved? Sachin Tendulkar scored his 17,000th run today. That’s a stupid number that’s seemingly of no consequence at all. But then think to yourself that scoring just a thousand one-day international runs is actually quite an achievement. Ricky Ponting’s only just passed 12,000 and he’s the third-highest one-day run-scorer of all time. Sanath Jayasuriya’s second on about 13,000. These guys are a long, long way behind. Two whole decades of being pretty damn exceptional Tendulkar’s not some fly-by-night like Mike Hussey; he’s not some short-lived overachiever like Ricky Ponting or Brian Lara. Tendulkar’s in it for the long haul. As impressive as all the runs and all the hundreds are, the most jaw-dropping achievement of all is that Sachin Tendulkar has managed to be good enough to play for his country for 20 years. Bet he’s ace at frisbee He’s not a Nepali Ultimate Frisbee player either – he’s an Indian cricketer. And not just any kind of Indian cricketer – an Indian batsman. This is a country where if you wander down to the Oval Maidan in Mumbai of an afternoon and grab the six nearest people, you’ll probably have a Test standard batting line-up. Sachin Tendulkar has been pretty much the best batsman in this country for 20 years. That’s astonishing. A tree falling in the woods may or may not make a sound But a Sachin Tendulkar hundred in a packed stadium makes a kind of searing white noise that sets the hairs on the back of your neck on end even when you’re sat in England watching it on Sky Plus when you already know the result. Towards the end of this match, Suresh Raina hit a cracking six and got all pumped-up and pleased with himself. He went for another big swing and spazzed it. Sachin Tendulkar hit two sixes in a row at one point. We can’t remember what he did with the next delivery, but he didn’t get out. He passed 17,000 runs and didn’t get out next ball. He got his hundred and still ploughed on. But get it wrong and the white noise becomes blue murder. There’s that too. And what have you got? You get batsmen who are exceptional when they’re 16. You get batsmen with adamantium wrists. You get batsmen who choose their shots well. You get cricketers who are fit and dedicated to their sport. You get cricketers who can cope with the downs and who come back stronger. You get get cricketers who can last for 20 years. You never get all of this. On the slide There were people four years ago saying that Sachin Tendulkar was ‘past it’. They said his reflexes had gone. People often say this about batsmen once they get past 30. It’s such utter, utter bullshit. Oh and by the way, Australia won. Why not subscribe to King Cricket? You can even get a daily update by email. Source: http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/sachin-tendulkar-20-years-of-batting-like-this-is-just-astonishing/2009/11/06/

[DomainK]

Tendulkar steals the show- The age ''We've kept Sachin (Tendulkar) in check so far. His scoring rate hasn't been too extravagant.'' Ricky Ponting, November 2. ''SO FAR'' proved to be the crucial words in Australian captain Ricky Ponting's appraisal of India's ''Little Master'' after game four of the one-day series, because in game five the 36-year-old responded with the second-highest score in his 435 one-day internationals. The only disappointment for India surrounding the glorious innings is that his 175 was still not enough to drag the home side to victory. And while the game didn't quite match the spectacle of the famous 872-run contest between South Africa and Australia at the Wanderers in 2006, it came close. When Australia posted 4-350 against India on Thursday night, the home side's chances of victory looked remote. But when India needed only 19 from the last three overs, having scored more than seven an over for its first 47, Australia's unloseable match seemed destined to be lost. Then came four wickets in 15 deliveries, including the scalp of Tendulkar, that allowed Australia to leave the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium with a three-run victory - and a 3-2 lead in the seven-match series. ''I don't think we did a lot wrong in the game,'' Ponting said. ''Sachin's innings would've been something that would've stolen the game from us. We did enough right in the game to win, and we got across the line at the very end. I can tell you now that the guys, even though we probably fought our way out of jail a little in the last half of the game, we were as excited out there and back in the rooms as we have been for any win that we've had.'' With nine Australia players unavailable due to injury - the majority being first-choice inclusions when fit - Ponting was even more thrilled to have won with what he agreed was close to an Australia A side. ''That's what I'm most proud of. With everything that's happened over the last couple of weeks, for us to keep finding ways to win games says a lot about the team, a lot about the individual players and the way we go about it,'' he said. ''I actually asked the guys for a little bit extra today, asked them to be really brave and to play the best form of cricket they possibly could and just back themselves at every opportunity. I thought the first half of the game with our batting we did that to a tee, and I think even in the last half of the game with the bowling we did that really well, so a great day for us.'' But while Australia took the victory, Tendulkar showed that his stellar career had plenty of life yet. The first really big cheer for the day was heard in the fifth over, when Tendulkar got the seven runs he needed to reach 17,000 runs in one-day internationals - a feat made more impressive considering second-placed Sanath Jayasuriya is more than 3700 runs short of the same milestone. The noise progressively got louder as Tendulkar raced past 50, 100 and then 150. As he did, India's unlikely target got less and less unlikely. A double-century, still unseen in one-day internationals, even seemed a possibility after two boundaries off Ben Hilfenhaus took his score to 167 at the end of the 41st over. The only chance Tendulkar offered that wasn't taken was as a non-striker on 173, when he backed up too far and was well short of his ground when Ponting's throw from cover flew wide. When Tendulkar finally miscued a shot in the 48th over, paddling a catch to short fine-leg, it seemed the main consequence would be that it would be someone other than Tendulkar hitting the winning runs - until three more wickets in the next 14 balls put paid to that prospect. The ground announcer gave Tendulkar ample opportunity after the match to talk up his knock, asking whether it was one of his best, yet all he was able to elicit from the veteran was, ''I would say so - I was striking the ball pretty well'', before he shifted the topic away from himself. Ponting marvelled at how he ''hit almost every ball in the middle of the bat'' and that it was ''one of the great one-day innings that I've seen'', while India's captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, said the innings was ''a pleasure'' to watch. Earlier, an opening stand of 145 between Shane Watson (93 from 89 balls) and Shaun Marsh (112 from 112) set the platform for Australia's 4-350. It was buttressed by Cameron White (57 from 33), Ponting (45 from 45) and Mike Hussey (31 not out from 22). To get the target, 351, India had to better its greatest successful chase - 326, against England in 2002. In response, Australia's bowlers struck four times in the opening half of India's innings to have the home side 4-169 - with Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni back in the change rooms. Suresh Raina was the last specialist batsman left, but his ability to stay with Tendulkar until the 43rd over took India to 4-299. Not only was 52 runs off the last eight overs achievable, the home side's prospect were also boosted by having its batting powerplay in hand. Ponting's desperation grew so much that, at one point, he threw the ball to his vice-captain, Hussey, to bowl his medium-pacers for the first time since February 2007. Two Watson wickets in the 43rd over - Raina for 59 to end his 137-run partnership with Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh for a second-ball duck - curbed India's momentum, although with Tendulkar firing on 169 it did not take long for it to return.. The 48th over turned the game on its head. Debutant Clint McKay, who went for 11 in his previous over, dismissed Tendulkar when he tried to paddle the ball to deep fine-leg, only to hit it to Nathan Hauritz. -Dav Whatmore will replace fellow Australian John Buchanan as coach of IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, according to former captain Sourav Ganguly, who told the Press Trust of India that Whatmore would take charge in 2010. Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/cricket/tendulkar-steals-the-show/2009/11/06/1257247751705.html?page=2

[Sachinism]

:two_thumbs_up: Good articles wtf was that King Cricket one lol

[punjabi_khota]

:adore:

[Holysmoke]

“This is the best one day innings I have seen of his. Forty five ODI hundreds, 17,000 runs - but this is the best knock I have seen of his, ever. And I mean it because I have seen some of his special ones and while I was going through the game I was trying to recollect which one could have been better than this. But to be honest, I could not find anything better," said Ganguly

[DomainK]

“This is the best one day innings I have seen of his. Forty five ODI hundreds' date=' 17,000 runs - but this is the best knock I have seen of his, ever. And I mean it because I have seen some of his special ones and while I was going through the game I was trying to recollect which one could have been better than this. But to be honest, I could not find anything better," said Ganguly[/quote'] No one has seen Sachin's game as closely as this guy has. And he was a worthy partner to the master. What a pair they were. :two_thumbs_up:

[Laaloo]

Blind worshippers

[Online]

“This is the best one day innings I have seen of his. Forty five ODI hundreds' date=' 17,000 runs - but this is the best knock I have seen of his, ever. And I mean it because I have seen some of his special ones and while I was going through the game I was trying to recollect which one could have been better than this. But to be honest, I could not find anything better," said Ganguly[/quote'] Dada rocks! Looking fwd to see him leading KKR again. P.S: Kaisa hai be?! Are you going for the 7th ODI?

[Feed]

Sachin was simply phenomenal What a game it was in Hyderabad! It went right down to the wire. Till the last over was bowled no one knew who would win, writes Mike Hussey. More...

Sachin was simply phenomenal Mike Hussey November 07, 2009 First Published: 02:04 IST(7/11/2009) Last Updated: 02:05 IST(7/11/2009) What a game it was in Hyderabad! It went right down to the wire. Till the last over was bowled no one knew who would win. It took a lot out of us physically as well as mentally and I can feel the exhaustion even on Friday morning. The win, however, did help us to tide over most of the discomfort, for, there's no better feeling than the one that comes after winning a close game. This series has had everything. India have done well, we have done well and the lead has gone from one side to another. Close matches, high-scoring matches and spectacular batting, good bowling…everything. I guess we can't ask for more! What we would like to have less of is that man Sachin Tendulkar. Till he was at the crease, I was quite worried. He was phenomenal and while this must have been one of his many great innings, for me this was his best live knock that I have come across. People may be wondering if we spend a lot of time discussing Tendulkar in team meetings prior to a game. The fact is that we don't. That is left to the bowlers and the bowling coach to handle. Normally, even before a series begins they sit down together and chart out plans for each opposition batsman and have Plans A, B and C ready. In this series, they may have had to come up with Plans D and C though, going by how our bowling personnel have changed with each match. Of course, you can do all the planning you want but it always boils down to the execution. And while we knew that a lot of our regular bowlers were missing, we were also aware that all the guys available or had flown in as replacements were proud to be able to play for Australia. Such performances shows that they are all very keen to get a chance and that when they do will get the full support of the captain and coach. They also know now that if they do their best, they can come out on top regardless of the conditions. When we set out to bat, we didn't exactly plan to cover up for any bowling weaknesses we may have had. That's not how we go about it. What we do is have our openers spend some time at the crease studying the pitch and conditions and relay the feedback to us. Communication is a key part of our plans and on Thursday, the message was that the pitch was a batting beauty and that the target would thus have to be big. We now move on to a day game. It will be difficult to wake up that early but the thought that a win in Guwahati will give us the series will be a highly motivating factor. With all the traveling and the distances we are covering, as also the time we need to devote to recovery, we haven't really had time to party. I can assure everyone, should we win the series, we will let our hair down. Until then we'll concentrate on the job at hand.

[Holysmoke]

P.S: Kaisa hai be?! Are you going for the 7th ODI?

I'm good ya.. having fun here:--D Just got my tickets to the game today:yay:

[rkt.india]

“This is the best one day innings I have seen of his. Forty five ODI hundreds' date=' 17,000 runs - but this is the best knock I have seen of his, ever. And I mean it because I have seen some of his special ones and while I was going through the game I was trying to recollect which one could have been better than this. But to be honest, I could not find anything better," said Ganguly[/quote'] 100 in Sharjah was better with better opposition bowling attack and India won the match. A knock cannot be a best knock until the team wins, otherwise just a stat.

[SachDan]

I'm good ya.. having fun here:--D Just got my tickets to the game today:yay:

:nice: Now that you'll be at the ground, make sure Sach scores a ton and India wins the series ! Yaar, Shane ko bhi saath mein lekhe jao..

[SachDan]

100 in Sharjah was better with better opposition bowling attack and India won the match. A knock cannot be a best knock until the team wins' date= otherwise just a stat.

Words of wisdom !! :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

[SachDan]

100 in Sharjah was better with better opposition bowling attack and India won the match. A knock cannot be a best knock until the team wins' date=' otherwise just a stat.[/quote'] FYI desert storm didn't win us the match. It only helped India to progress in to the final with a better NRR ! PS he choked there as well :giggle:

[Feed]

Tendulkar doesn't need rankings to prove his worth: Vaas Hailing Sachin Tendulkar as one of the greatest batsman in cricket's history, Sri Lankan pace bowler Chaminda Vaas said the ICC rankings should not be used to judge his worth. More... Tendulkar doesn't need rankings to prove his worth: Vaas November 07, 2009 15:04 IST Hailing Sachin Tendulkar [ Images ] as one of the greatest batsman in cricket's history, Sri Lankan pace bowler Chaminda Vaas [ Images ] said the ICC [ Images ] rankings should not be used to judge his worth. "The ranking does not really count for him. He is a great cricketer and has been scoring runs consistently for more than 15 years. He is a hero for this country. I hope he will contribute more for the country," said Vaas. The left-arm pacer was commenting about the ICC rankings of all-time greats, where Tendulkar didn't even figure in the top 20. Vaas, who is in Kolkata [ Images ], to play for Mohun Bagan in the local season, said, felt Zaheer Khan [ Images ] has improved a lot following India's tour of England [ Images ] in 2007. "Zaheer has improved a lot, especially after playing the series in England. He is bowling in good areas, getting good pace and swing. He is a brilliant bowler for India and has many years to serve the country," he told reporters. Vaas, who played his first match for Mohun Bagan and made a quick-fire 23-ball 38 (5x4, 1x6) in their quarter-final win over Shambazar, said, "This is the first time I am playing a club match in India. It's a good feeling for me especially when I got some runs and bowled in the right areas. I'm really glad that we won the match and I contributed with both bat and ball."

[Texy]

damn ticket costs 1000 rupees??

[Shane]

Yaar, Shane ko bhi saath mein lekhe jao..

Day 4,5 of the Third Test for me. :yay: