Tendulkar's quest for his hundredth hundred

[SachDan]

Sachin has to go back to his past and relearn, writes Nirmal Shekar ŵhe struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happyÇ÷ Albert Camus inThe Myth of Sisyphus. Watching Sachin Tendulkar laughing in the dressing room perhaps sharing a joke with his mates shortly before lunch on the fourth day of the third Test between India and the West Indies on Friday, a little over an hour after he had fallen six runs short of a 100th international century, Camus's rationalisation of the ceaseless Sisyphean endeavour came to mind. From the time the Mumbai maestro scored his 99th hundred (111) against South Africa in the World Cup on March 12, tens of millions of person hours have been lost in a losing cause as fans have filled stadia and nervously plonked themselves on couches in front of television screens, waiting for a moment that has never been witnessed before in international cricket. Their hero may not show his disappointment, but as television cameras panned the stands at the stadium on Friday, it was obvious that those awaiting a rare moment of triumphal delirium were crestfallen, their disappointment tinged with disbelief. Painful wait Since his last international hundred, Sachin has played in four ODIs and in 12 Test innings. In the event, for his fans, the wait has been excruciating. What should have been a surging crest of applause at the Wankhede Stadium turned into sepulchral silence as the Little Master departed after a mouth-wateringly promising half an hour at the crease To this columnist, what is obvious is this: Sachin has been too self-conscious, too aware of the enormity of the prospective feat, once he came within touching distance of it. In the event, a slight nervous twitch here, a cordon of tension across the back of the neck, and the moment eludes him yet again. The physical side of sport is over-emphasised; the mental side is often downplayed. But it is the latter that is the key even for the greatest of performers when historic moments beckon. It is easy to make a birdie putt on the 18th green if it is just another tournament. But when it is the Green Jacket the traditional winner's prize at the Augusta Masters that is hanging up there in the clubhouse and the whole world is watching, your hands can begin to shake and your mind wander, even if you happen to be Tiger Woods. Doubt, anxiety, worry and, most of all, fear the fear of failure this monster can knock down the best of men playing at their peak form. Fear of letting down oneself and one's tens of millions of fans is a sort of mental virus that can eat into a player's psyche and stop him or her short of magic milestones. Burden of expectations And the problem is compounded in team sports especially in the case of Sachin in a nation of over 1.2 billion people, to many of whom cricket is a religion where the burden of expectations can be unreasonably high if you have been the country's most celebrated star for well over two decades. To call someone who has just returned to the pavilion after scoring 94 runs with an array of dazzling strokes a failure may be a dreadful thing to do. But in Sachin's case, the time-span between his last hundred and the one the whole world wants him to get is turning out to be gut-wrenchingly long. The point is, Sachin has to forget who he is and cease to think of what lies ahead of him to accomplish the feat. He has always been a master of living in the present, functioning in the here-and-now like a Zen monk, seemingly devoid of ego. After a rather poor series by his own standards in England, the great man appears to have lost that art. He now needs to go back to his past and relearn. Mental rehearsal Sports psychologists call this process mental rehearsal. ŽÅŽ¸hat was the state in which I functioned when I got all those hundreds as a matter of habit?'' This is the question Sachin has to ask himself. All sports create moments of intense anxiety, both for the performers and for the viewers. This is why we love sport. But great winners use this sort of anxiety as a positive means of arousal, an adrenaline-charge, to catapult themselves to extraordinary heights. Losers melt in the heat of the moment. Regular readers of this column do not need to be told in which category this writer would put Sachin. It the 100th ton will come some time soon. Sachin just has to stop thinking about it.?

[Ithyphallic]

I think not Sachin but people will have to stop thinking about it, the 100th 100. It will come.

[Sir john]

29 th time nervous ninety choke or 100 th ton.:hehe:

[Sehwag1830]

Tendulkar's quest for his hundredth hundred TendulkarÃÔ quest for his ÃÉundredth hundred http://telegraphindia.com/1111201/jsp/opinion/story_14819040.jsp

[Raghav_12]

A more interesting article would be: "Media's quest for Sachin's hundredth hundred"

[Sachinism]

Interesting points, but its not really Sachin's fault we are giving importance to round numbers

[The Realist]

Yawn, seriously this is getting really tired now :asleep:

[akshayxyz]

Its a tough pick, which one is getting more annoying... talks about 100th 100 or Kolaveri-s.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[akshayxyz]

:haha: uber pwnage..Who in the right mind would say that it is easier to score 100 in 50 overs, when you are also expected to take more risks!! it does not take more than a second to realize that almost all the top batsmen have test averages about 10+ points higher than their ODI averages. Some people speak with the confidence as if they remember every stat and in reality they would not even know size of their deeeks.

[Viki_J]

hmmn....no worries sachin

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[pensionplan]

Mukul is right all things considered it is hard to score a century in Tests than in ODI's. And by the way with the advent of 20-20's and its popularity it is time to scrap 50 over cricket. How many abbreviated versions of the game do we need. Enough of duping people. Let us have 20-20 since it is the chosen exhibition variety now ahead of the 50 over game based on the popularity to go along with the real cricket which is ofcourse Test cricket.

[Ultimate_Game]

Mukul is right all things considered it is hard to score a century in Tests than in ODI's. And by the way with the advent of 20-20's and its popularity it is time to scrap 50 over cricket. How many abbreviated versions of the game do we need. Enough of duping people. Let us have 20-20 since it is the chosen exhibition variety now ahead of the 50 over game based on the popularity to go along with the real cricket which is ofcourse Test cricket.

We want Tests and odis with T20 only as a domestic format such as IPL or County T20 or Big Bash etc., to get people to watch domestic cricket.

[The Outsider]

Yeah following the logic being presented in the thread, scoring a century in T20 is the toughest. One Afridi starts a F5 league, it will be the toughest to score a century in.

[pensionplan]

Yeah following the logic being presented in the thread, scoring a century in T20 is the toughest. One Afridi starts a F5 league, it will be the toughest to score a century in.

First T10 and then transition to F5. Sehwag is a master of T10 game and he will kick some serious butt having grown up playing that format.

[Ultimate_Game]

"Difficulty" of scoring century across formats, specifically odis and Tests, depends on various factors, and specifically pitch conditions. On a flat pitch where hardly one innings per side is completed over 5 days with both sides racking up 600+ it would be much easier to score a 100 in a Test than odis. As for scoring 100s more difficult in the shorter format, it's actually is logically correct. I mean you see a 100 scored in almost every Test and it's not surprising to see multiple players getting 100s in the same Test. However multiple 100s in a odi are extremely rare and in T20 getting a 100 itself is rarity. It stands to reason that getting a 100 in shorter formats will get more difficult coz noo. of deliveries to get to 100 are reduced and thus more risks will be taken by the batsmen. I think we are confusing "difficulty" of scoring a 100 with actual "value" of scoring a 100. Even though it might be comparatively easier to score a 100 in a Test as compared to scoring a 100 in a T20, scoring a century is more valuable since are Tests are not meaningless and generally have a context whereas T20 games are dime a dozen without too much riding on it. Same is the case of odis, i.e. a 100 scored in a meaningless odi doesn't have much of a value compared to a Test 100 unless scored in a world cup, and especially in the latter stages of the tourney.

[The Outsider]

^ Thank you for infusing some sense into this thread as I could not be bothered to type what you did above in the second paragraph. This isn't a case of what is more difficult or easy to achieve statistically - it's a concept of value in line with core cricketing skills. Yeah, there are a few centuries in meaningless contexts on pattas in tests, but to any reader without a blindfold Mukul was not talking about them - Gooch's 154 scored 20 years back is still rated as one of the best innings ever played in cricket. Can anyone name an ODI century from the same year, without going to stats guru, which left even half the impact?

[rkt.india]

:haha: uber pwnage..Who in the right mind would say that it is easier to score 100 in 50 overs, when you are also expected to take more risks!! it does not take more than a second to realize that almost all the top batsmen have test averages about 10+ points higher than their ODI averages. Some people speak with the confidence as if they remember every stat and in reality they would not even know size of their deeeks.

:haha::hysterical:

[Raghav_12]

Yeah following the logic being presented in the thread, scoring a century in T20 is the toughest. One Afridi starts a F5 league, it will be the toughest to score a century in.

I did not get your point here. Are you trying to suggest that, in fact, a century in F5 would be easier than the century in T20, ceteris paribus??