GoldenSun Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Thanks for digging up all these great articles Chandan :hatsoff: Link to comment
GrandMasterSaxy Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 My new bat grip, Inspired by Tendulkar Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment
Chandan Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 http://goo.gl/5WeZyG SACHIN TENDULKAR - CRICKETER, 1973 Harsha Bhogle April 10, 2008 | UPDATED 15:28 IST When are you fully aware that you are in the midst of greatness? Does greatness have an aura, a presence about it that announces itself? Or can greatness, like with Sachin Tendulkar, be visibly manifest in one arena and be almost invisible in another? And when does it first become apparent? Is there a moment when people knock down the door that separates the good from the great? Or do they simply vapourise from one chamber and reappear in another? It's a question I have often asked myself as I look back at the box seat I have enjoyed at the Great Tendulkar Show; watching the transition from a shy, confident schoolboy to a shy, confident megastar. He's had a lot of fun in that journey but even he can, at best, hazard a guess at how much fun it has been for us, just watching the spectacle. And so, on this journey, when did greatness first nudge him on the shoulder and gently invite him towards itself? Was it when he was 14 and made 1,028 runs in five innings at school? Four of them not out for an average of, well, 1,028? Just for being so far ahead of anyone else that a young editor commissioned a then young writer to judge whether this cherubic kid was the greatest schoolboy cricketer ever. Sachin Tendulkar Was it when, at 15, instead of thinking about movies or chocolate milkshakes, he was thinking of facing Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop in the West Indies? Just for being disappointed at not being selected? Was it when, at 16, having walked out to play a Test match, he had to be reminded that a bowler at this level had to be respected? When the bowlers answered to the names of Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed? Just for thinking that a bowler's job was merely to put the ball in the right place for him? Was it when, as an authentic 17-year-old (now why do we need to put that adjective there?) he scored a century to save his team from certain defeat? Just for the sheer nonchalance of it all as he peeled off boundary after boundary and wondered why everyone else was surprised? Was it when, not yet 18, he told his partner in that land of men, Australia, that he too would respond to the sledging after he had scored his century? Just for the sheer self-belief, for the thought itself, for providing the first indicator that he would, all his life, respond only with the bat? Quick take Q: His being out in 1999 Adelaide Test against Australia gave birth to which term? A: Shoulder before wicket Q: How many runs did Tendulkar score in his first ODI match? A: He was out for a duck Q: Which debutant bowler complained about Tendulkar's bat being extra broad? A: Alan Mullally of England Q: The English county Yorkshire hired Tendulkar in 1992.What was special about this? A: He was Yorkshire's first overseas professional Q: Tendulkar's elder brother has written a book about him. What is it called? A: The Making of a Cricketer Was it when, not yet 21, he had seven Test centuries behind him? At an age when people are still thinking about whether they can play a Test. Just for the sheer audacity of it all, seven Test hundreds before 21? But hang on, we could be writing a book here. Isn't that greatness when there are so many moments of it that you cannot isolate one that truly defines it? Does his greatness lie in that great sense of composure he seems to communicate when there is a child in him, still all excited by the idea of playing for India, by the idea of someone running up to bowl to him? Does greatness lie in remaining a child even when he is a father of two? Or did greatness mark him out when he understood what he can do? When he saw pathways and passages for a cricket ball on a cricket ground where others only saw obstructions? When he had the confidence to sight horizons that were beyond the vision of others? Surely that has to be it. Don't some actors read words and others convey meaning from the same script? Wasn't that greatness apparent when, at the height of the match-fixing controversy, I got a mail from a simple man: "Please tell me that Sachin is not involved. If Sachin is involved, then what is left?" For in post-liberal India he represents what an Indian can achieve and there is an inherent purity that India perceives in him. And there is more. Close to 21 years after first meeting him, I think his greatness lies in the dignity that has accompanied him to the crease and elsewhere. In the humility with which he has conquered the game, and yet, bowed to it. In being the master of all he has surveyed, and yet, in being a servant of the game. Yes, that is what I think it is. ------------------------------------------------------------ HARSHA'S VIDEO TRIBUTES L7GIenLGlgE yfRkxR32IjM 8BMAt4q38dI 0sJMJW7MFmw d8CJCeF9aCk . Link to comment
Chandan Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 http://goo.gl/lDclJC A touch of Viv Sanjay Manjrekar October 24, 2013 A young Tendulkar: at his best when pitted against another individual © Getty Images I was privileged to watch, from very close quarters, a child prodigy go on to become a true legend of the game. A batsman who stunned the world with his voracious appetite for the game and for making hundreds. Sachin Tendulkar has only played a single international T20. His exploits in the format were all in the IPL and at the Champions League. You will agree that his impact on the shortest format of the game has been less than that on the others. T20 cricket came into Tendulkar's life a little too late and cricket is slightly poorer for that. Had T20 come into the game when Tendulkar was in the youth of his batting career, he would have been one of the most dangerous T20 batsmen in the world. Sure, he would not have hit the ball as long as Chris Gayle does, but he would have given the bowlers the same kinds of nightmares. Brian Lara in a TV chat recently confessed that he would have struggled in T20 cricket because it just did not suit his temperament; for starters, he needed a bit of time to get going while batting. Not Tendulkar. The Tendulkar that I saw early in his career was as much a master in the short formats of the game as he was in the longest. In the early '90s we used to play lots of privately organised tournaments, among them various single-wicket, double-wicket and six-a-side affairs. These were typically two, three, or a maximum of five overs. Away from the glare of TV and the other media, we saw some mind-boggling innings from Tendulkar in these games. Whatever target was set, he would achieve it, single-handed. Yes, even in a double-wicket match or a six-a-side tournament. I noticed that Tendulkar was at his best when he was pitted against another individual. This happened a lot in such tournaments, where it was a battle between one bowler and one batsman that decided the fate of a match. I have been witness to some breathtaking hitting from Tendulkar in such events. The most memorable instance was in a double-wicket tournament played at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, when he took Manoj Prabhakar and Kapil Dev apart to reach an almost impossible target to win yet again. Vinod Kambli was the lucky beneficiary as Tendulkar's partner in that tournament. During that contest I saw some well-aimed yorkers from two highly accomplished India bowlers disappear over the midwicket boundary for huge sixes. It was the first time I had seen yorkers being dismissed in that fashion. That innings was played away from the international arena but the bowling was international-quality and the intensity very high. The strokeplay that night from Tendulkar left all of us in a daze. This trait of Tendulkar's was also seen in the nets, where too the one-to-one combat brought the best out of him, and we would stop everything we were doing to watch. Sometimes Javagal Srinath, towards the end of one of Tendulkar's batting stints in the nets, would throw him a challenge: "Okay Sachin, last four balls from me, 12 runs to win." Tendulkar would come up with a counter offer: "No, eight runs in four balls." The negotiations would go on for a bit and then a number like ten would be agreed upon. The stage was nicely set: four balls from Srinath and Tendulkar had to get ten runs to win the "match". Srinath would then set an imaginary field, and after every ball bowled, this field would be adjusted. All this would happen while the other net bowlers continued to bowl normally at Tendulkar. But when Srinath ran in to bowl, you could see Tendulkar's demeanour change. It was not just net practice now. I saw this little contest take place many times during my career, and I never saw Srinath win. And the same went for the other bowlers who attempted it. Tendulkar was just too good for Srinath. He would play around with him and his "field". Often, to add salt to the wound, he would deliberately hit the ball into areas from where Srinath had just removed his "fielders". Tendulkar would walk off, pleased as punch, having won another bout with a bowler, and Srinath would be seen standing in his typical arms-crossed stance, having accepted defeat, but you could see his eyes were full of admiration for the little fellow as he left the nets to take off his pads. When Tendulkar was growing up, he idolised Sir Vivian Richards, and it was obvious to us that he also wanted to bat like him in his early days. Tendulkar was never the showman, like Viv could be, but that is not to say that he was less combative. I remember another game that wasn't on TV. Mumbai were playing Baroda in a Ranji match at the RCF cricket ground. Tendulkar walked in at the fall of a Mumbai wicket*, and we saw as he got up that he was not looking very motivated. Tendulkar and Manjrekar after a defeat to Sri Lanka in the 1996 World Cup © Associated Press Baroda had this pace bowler called Mukesh Narula who had a bit of spirit. He liked to play hard, and in this particular innings he took that fighting spirit to the next level. Some bouncers were sent Tendulkar's way, and along with them some glares and words under the breath too. I suppose Narula wanted to show his team-mates that he was not overawed by the man, as they were. All of us in the Mumbai dressing room were thinking: "What are you doing, Mukesh?" The inevitable happened. Bored till then, Tendulkar got charged up. The faster Narula bowled, the harder the ball bounced back from Tendulkar's bat to hit the sight-screen. I still vividly remember the force with which the ball thudded into the wall next to the sight-screen. This was not Tendulkar just scoring runs, this was Tendulkar showing disdain for Narula without uttering a single word. After the match, I spoke to Kiran More, who was captaining Baroda. "Your best chance of getting Tendulkar out was to keep him bored. Your Narula gave him a reason to bat." This was the Tendulkar of the early days. Obviously over his long 24-year batting career, he changed, but the Tendulkar with the ghost of Viv in him was my favourite Tendulkar. 03:54:17 GMT, 23 October, 2013: The article originally said Tendulkar's performance against Narula was in the second innings of the match ----------------------------------------- u_8VKDA53To A wonderful programme on Sachin. http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/432073/thank-you-sachin-a-cnnibn-documentary.html . Link to comment
mishra Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 ^ Image of yours. Had he not got out that day, He would have won us 1996 world Cup. Link to comment
Chandan Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 http://goo.gl/yuqdu7 Sachin Tendulkar | Genius in residence Here’s what it was like to be around the great batsman whose vocabulary seemed distilled to a single Marathi word—‘shambar’. It means hundred Rohit Brijnath FIRST PUBLISHED: FRI, NOV 08 2013 Tendulkar batting in his last Ranji Trophy match against Haryana at Lahli in Haryana last month. Photo: Shirish Shete/PTI I can compel a bowler to bowl a delivery? If he wasn’t naturally coated by a suburban modesty, if he wasn’t truly a genius capable of such deception, well then you’d have to say he was showing off. It is 1998, it is late November in Mumbai and this man, who cricket belongs to, is having one of his expressive days. Pressure, goals, the zone, visualization...he wants to talk. The discussion shifts to his choice of shot, his judgement, for sometimes it’s as if he’s a clairvoyant who can read cricket’s next move on a field. Not just anticipation, something else. “It also depends on the previous four to five deliveries and what you’ve done and what the bowler feels about it and what he’s going to do. And accordingly you react. And because you’re ready it looks like you had a lot of time. “It is not just that I expected him (the bowler) to do this. Sometimes I compel the bowler to do this. I play in a particular fashion intentionally so he does something and I am prepared.” What the hell? I return to Delhi and replay the tape at home in 1998 and grin. It is nine years since I first met him but Sachin Tendulkar is still educating me, taking me where I want to go and rarely travel, inside excellence, just a peek into its corners, just a faint idea of the architecture of the competitive, creative mind. No one, not as frequently, would do this for me in the 1990s. No one could. Sachin Tendulkar batting for India against the Minor Counties XI at Trowbridge, England, UK, in 1990. The match ended in a draw. Photo: David Munden/Popperfoto/Getty Images Tendulkar was not my friend, he was a polite, punctual professional. If he agreed to an hour in the 1990s I got the whole hour, not 55 minutes, not an interrupted hour of phone calls and visitors. He met questions with subdued emotion, agitated more by captaincy queries and testy later with interrogations on his altered batting style. He did not want you to read him beyond the obvious. Maybe there was not too much to read. His face told no immediate tales, not even to bowlers, he did not look scared nor hurried just implacable, offering—as I later found in so many great athletes—no hint of what lies beneath. It was perhaps both ploy and protection. He was a national conversation who was himself capable of cliche, occasionally uninteresting, yet often articulate and detailed. Once, in the late 1990s, he gives cricket columnist Amrit Mathur a telling recounting of his choice of bats, of how he prepared, and even now Mathur remembers: “What came out was that he was a genius who thought deeply about his craft. His mind was like an advanced computer which absorbed information, processed it, saved what was important.” Tendulkar did to Mathur what he unwittingly did to me: He cannot make us good writers, but he will make us better ones. For me, and for an entire swathe of Indians of a particular age, he will be our close-up, intimate, first education into genius. We meet first in late February, 1989: I am three years into a sports writing career and 26; he is eight months from an India debut and two months from 16. He merits a cover story in Sportsworld, a weekly magazine in Calcutta staffed by 20-plus year olds who are intoxicated by Sun Lager and long-form writing. We think we are stylists, except my Tendulkar story is flat, failing to capture him or appreciate the coming phenomenon and he is too young to wear blame as a hideous interviewee. But no interview, not even later monosyllabic brushes with Mohammad Azharuddin, is useless and this journey to Mumbai for Tendulkar is not wasted entirely. First because I meet his father, Ramesh, and take with me a memory of calm and a quote from the professor that offers a tiny insight into his son: “I love my children and look upon them as my friends. I am against giving advice and leave the choice of their careers to them. It must be their own experience. If they have a problem they will come to me. My son’s education is important but if the priority is cricket then that must be pursued. If he fails one has to accept it.” Second, I have no concept of prodigy beyond Boris Becker and now unsettlingly I must deal with a home-grown boy ahead of his time. How do you relate to a 16-year-old with adult gifts? And so Tendulkar will force me to read on female swimmers and Mozart and ice hockey champion Wayne Gretzky, rummaging through history to comprehend precocious performers who cannot utter a coherent sentence, whose bodies are unformed, yet whose complete expression of themselves in public is staggeringly grown up. Tendulkar’s youth—apart from emboldening his peers as Rahul Dravid once told me—is what baffles us then, his audacity is exhilarating yet confusing, for we are not used to this in an Indian world where young people are supposed to know their timid place. In 1989, when Tendulkar arrives, it is two years since Sunil Gavaskar retired, nine years since Prakash Padukone’s All-England badminton win, 28 years since Ramanathan Krishnan reached the Wimbledon semi-finals and 25 years since the hockey team won a non-boycott Olympic gold. I am an anxious writer, obsessive, searching. Every writer needs professors, not only grammarians and reporting gurus, but athletes who tutor, who inadvertently guide, who make you constantly aware of what you don’t know. Genius can be enjoyed from afar, but to acutely understand its ingredients and workings a writer needs interpreters. "I have no concept of prodigy beyond Boris Becker and now unsettlingly I must deal with a home-grown boy ahead of his time. How do you relate to a 16-year-old with adult gifts?" Swimmer Ian Thorpe once explains to sportswriter Sharda Ugra and me at the Beijing 2008 Olympics how a race never starts on the blocks but long before; tennis player Mats Wilander speaks on a Melbourne morning about being No.1 and creating an artificial hate for rivals. It’s as if they’re fleetingly leading you through an unfathomable brain, a strange tribe of athletes and adventurers who relish match points and 20 runs to get in seven balls and are best described by the wire-walker Karl Wallenda: “Being on a tightrope is living; everything else is just waiting.” Often athletes cannot even explain themselves, not even sophisticated men like Roger Federer on why he strikes a ball with such cleanliness. It is an inability to explain that what is unnatural to us is routine and natural to them. When Federer tried to explain his talent, his truth was viewed as vanity. Similarly, in November 1998, seven months after his two sizzling centuries in Sharjah that sink Australia, I pester Tendulkar about his goals and he says he’d rather not say, and then suddenly blurts out: “I decided to win the tournament for India.” Oh, just like that. Sachin Tendulkar | That prized wicket Nuwan Kulasekara of Sri Lanka celebrates after bowling out Sachin Tendulkar during One Day International Series at The Gabba on 21 February, 2012 in Brisbane, Australia. Photographs: Getty Images Jason Gillespie of Australia celebrates the wicket of Tendulkar on day two of the Fourth Test between India and Australia at Wankhede Stadium on 4 November, 2004 in Mumbai, India. Brett Lee of Australia celebrates taking the wicket of Tendulkar during the ICC Knockout Tournament second round match between India and Australia at the Gymkhana Club Ground, Nairobi, Kenya. Monty Panesar of England celebrates taking the wicket of Tendulkar on day three of the First Test between India and England at The VCA Stadium on 3 March, 2006 in Nagpur, India. Shoaib Akhtar of Pakistan celebrates the wicket of Tendulkar during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 Pool A match between India and Pakistan held on 1 March, 2003 at the Supersport Stadium, in Centurion, South Africa. India won the match by 6 wickets. Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka celebrates the wicket of Tendulkar during the 2011 ICC World Cup Final between India and Sri Lanka at Wankhede Stadium on 2 April, 2011 in Mumbai, India. Makhaya Ntini of South Africa appeals for lbw against Tendulkar during Day One of the First test between South Africa and India at the Liberty Life Wanderers Stadium on 15 December, 2006 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Pieter Seelaar of the Netherlands celebrates the wicket of Tendulkar during the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup Group B match between India and the Netherlands at Feroz Shah Kotla stadium on 9 March, 2011 in Delhi. Glenn McGrath of Australia claims the wicket of Tendulkar during day four of the Third Test between India and Australia played at the VCA Stadium, on 29 October, 2004 in Nagpur, India. James Anderson. The English bowler has dismissed Tendulkar the most number of times in Test matches (9), followed by Muttiah Muralitharan (8), and Gillespie (6). In One Day Internationals, Chaminda Vaas, Lee and Shaun Pollock share the prize with nine each. In the late 1980s-early 1990s, I am begging time from athletes, notebooks littered with questions, everything so incredibly new. Later Leander Paes will offer a schooling in theatrical aggression and kinetic speed and Viswanathan Anand will educate us about memory. Later Dravid will let us into his wait for the right ball and Anil Kumble will riff on consistency. Later a young judoka with twisted fingers will lecture on pain and Abhinav Bindra will unveil the intensity of obsession. They are the chapters of my education. But then, in my beginnings, it is only chance that throws Tendulkar into my world at the precise time. The thrill of it cannot be underplayed for in the early 1990s, by when I had moved to India Today, a newly-liberalized India is full of charming and poignant sporting tales but shallow in sporting genius. The envy I feel for Sports Illustrated writers is sharp for they are surrounded by athletic richness in America. But, for us, most of this excellence was foreign and far and Michael Jordan, Pete Sampras, Mike Tyson is a world almost no Indian is allowed within interviewing distance of. We cannot stroll into their hotel rooms, play table tennis with them, stand back with a dying cigarette and just enjoy their daily polish of talent. But with Tendulkar I could. He was here, right before us, long before a time of entourages and minders, his phone number in our diaries. It was like calling Jordan and it was an unsurpassable gift: he was greatness available. To have him then was akin to a poetry critic finding W.B. Yeats on a somewhat deserted island. He was like no one else. Only Anand was his equal, possibly even superior for Tendulkar’s sport was oddly shallow in the number of competing nations. But contemplative chess was unable to mount a mass seduction and Tendulkar, aided by the arrival of satellite television, could. He spoke like a lost boy whose vocabulary was distilled to a single Marathi word. Shambar. Hundred. He stood as still as a praying priest, and then assaulted bowlers with a thick bat as if committing polite armed robbery. I had never seen such effrontery, I had not even considered the notion of risk till he started lofting balls over the in-field: then I figured what was risk for me was the percentage shot for him. I witnessed his preternatural, mythical calm, as if he ate coolant for breakfast, inhabiting his own tiny Tendulkar planet where control was his anthem. Greatness is useless if you don’t know how to handle it, he told us. The 1990s was a giddy, exaggerated, intriguing time. Magazines consulted palmists. An editor told me at India Today that the previous night the police commissioner had an idea about Tendulkar’s numbers I might want to investigate. Everyone had a sighting, a story, a theory. He ate 65 batata wadas once. He watched a movie in a burqa. No, wait, a wig. He talks cricket in his sleep. Only the truly great, I learnt, are stalked by myth, a bit like those tales of Dhyan Chand’s hockey stick being broken to check if there was a magnet inside. But something more real was learned as well. And long before Malcolm Gladwell was stimulating debate on “perfect practice”, Tendulkar’s diligence was before us. He was scarcely the first, for Milkha Singh told tales of training till he urinated blood, and cricketers before him were slaves to sweat. But this was different because it became fashionable to see Tendulkar as a celestial cricketer, the holy batsman, when really he was an imperfect, methodical man of scrupulous routine, who might not have listened to Mozart but certainly would have agreed with the musician’s words: “People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I.” And so once when Clayton Murzello, Mid-Day’s fine cricket writer, finished an interview with Tendulkar in 2004 and exited his house, even before the lift arrived and Murzello could descend, he could hear this sound from inside. Thump, thump, thump. It was Tendulkar’s music, his bat hitting floor as he returned to practising his stroke. From this single sound is revealed two parts of Tendulkar. First, love. The poet Maya Angelou once wrote: “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” It is how cricket might have seemed to Tendulkar—his private space, a life lived during and between shots, a life where white clothes were his second skin. You felt his love and not so much when he scored but when he couldn’t play and turned into a boy denied. During the worst days of his tennis elbow, in 2004, he could not pick up his bat, the only instrument that separated him from others, and told Murzello that he “pleaded every day, every minute” to God: “Just let me play”. The second thing about the thump, thump, thump was discipline. Don’t waste time. Every man, he was telling us, has a choice of what he wishes to do with his genius and where he might take it. And he needed to be this fundamentalist about discipline because he had to counter not just zealous bowlers but a highly-strung India which hollered for him to be perfect. “Pressure” wasn’t a new idea, but it had a new weight in a connected and celebritifed sporting world where a teenage Becker felt the need to calm an adult planet after his Wimbledon second-round defeat in 1987: “Nobody died. I only lost a tennis match.” But the expectation on Tendulkar was unparalleled. In the era of Becker, to take a random example, Germany won over a 150 summer Olympic medals, a hockey Olympic gold, a football World Cup, and yes, it had Steffi Graf. India, in the 1990s at least, had only Tendulkar of that sporting quality (Anand won his first world championship in 2000). He was the best in the whole world from a nation that suffered from a sense of inadequacy. Even as we were all complicit in creating the pressure, we were astonished by how he wore it. If cricket stopped being fun for him, he rarely advertised it; if the expectation climbed, he occasionally shrugged at the anarchy around him. LeBron James recently said of Jordan, “I think the greatest thing about MJ was that he never was afraid to fail. And I think that’s why he succeeded so much—because he was never afraid of what anybody ever said about him.” Years ago I wondered the same about Tendulkar: how did he not fail more often? How did he traverse his world? How could he block out failure and fear and us? How did he release his talent? How bloody good was he? I had never asked these questions before, I had never needed to. With Tendulkar also came overstatement, of which I, too, was guilty. India, after all, was staggeringly indiscreet in its praise of him. He didn’t seem to mind it and which athlete does? Even now “GodBye” headlines flourish and a commentator wrote to me, “You would think no one has ever retired from the game”. We set him above all rules and then later, as his career dragged on and the hundred 100s became a painful chase, we blamed him when he might have thought he was above them. But in the early days, as if unprepared for such a man, we were uncertain how to treat him and worship was like a default setting. Now cricketers, even if still religiously followed, are treated to the quick sneering cynicism of blogger and tweeter. Now cricket is a team sport, then it was a Tendulkar game. Eventually writers discovered some balance, but he remained an unweildy subject. As coach Paul Annacone now says of Roger Federer, Tendulkar is “atypical”. You can’t judge them like anyone else after a lifetime of being something else. Federer is flawed but a grand, decent man; Tendulkar has been variously accused of pushing Mumbai players, not winning sufficient matches, captaining over-enthusiastically, picking and choosing one-day events, yet he was a wondrously graceful man. The great athlete comes with a sizeable vanity for he must think himself greater than the next man. It is part of his mental weaponry. Yet Tendulkar instructed me, through his behaviour when both of us were young, that the great athlete need not flourish this conceit beyond the arena. He knew he was Tendulkar and he knew that you—bowler and spectator—knew. It was enough. He wore greatness, in the arena and beyond, respectfully. In our meetings over the years, in different lands, he was not once rude, distracted, arrogant or late. I left a note for him after his father died during the 1999 World Cup and when he returned to England after the funeral he sought me out to say thank you. My favourite story is from April 1998 in that Sharjah year of two centuries against Australia in the desert night. He had agreed I could fly back with him to Mumbai from Sharjah after the tournament and interview him in his city for an India Today story. Except on the Wednesday he scores 143 in 131 balls against Australia to qualify India for the Friday final and my Delhi office is calling: India’s going crazy. We can’t wait. We need the Tendulkar story this week. Thursday night—tomorrow—is the deadline. Friday, day of the final, is Tendulkar’s birthday and on Thursday, the rest day, his late agent Mark Mascarenhas throws a party for him at a hotel. Fortunately, I am invited. Rudely, I am at work, gathering quotes from Allan Border, Shane Warne, the Chappell brothers amid the beer and eats. Peter Roebuck, my friend, is helping me with stories. I corner Tendulkar briefly and tell him nicely that his century has killed me. No time, no quotes, threatening deadline. He must have smiled, I can’t remember. It’s his birthday party, he’s about to go on a run of nine one-day centuries in 26 innings, he’s dazzled India, he’s destroyed Australia, he’s the centre of cricket’s universe, everyone wants to hold his hand, pat his shoulder, celebrate him, congratulate him, be photographed with him, autographed by him. He is a sober man breathing an intoxicating air and then he does this. He comes to me and says 10 minutes, or was it five, and leads me (and the writer Ayaz Memon) to a corner table and sits down and speaks, right in the middle of his party. Then he is gone, back in the world’s embrace. I race home and write and send to Delhi a story that will be titled simply, “Best In The World”. I will miss Tendulkar because he was always there. I am glad he is going because it is time to miss him. I don’t think I knew him at all, I don’t know if most of us did. But as a writer and watcher, as I search myself to define what I feel about him, one word keeps arriving again and again. Grateful. 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Chandan Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 http://goo.gl/nIRoGG Not content with being one of the greatest batsmen ever, Tendulkar is now an oracle as well. Those 22 yards were my temple: Tendulkar Wisden India staff | Mumbai | 17 November 2013 In a career that spanned for 24 years, Sachin Tendulkar finished with a Test aggregate of 15921 runs. © Getty Images "The way people responded to me…I would like to say a big thank you to everyone. It was very special for me to see that reaction from people." © Getty Images On his first day as a former cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar arrived at a city restaurant impeccably dressed in a white shirt and a blue tie, the BCCI crest proudly adorning his suit, to address a 400-strong media contingent. As Anjali, his wife, looked on from the sidelines, Tendulkar held forth for three-quarters of an hour on a wide range of topics, from the delight and privilege of getting the Bharat Ratna that he dedicated to all Indian mothers, to becoming emotional as he walked out to the Wankhede Stadium pitch one final time to say his thank you to the 22 yards that he said defined his life. Here is the full transcript of his interaction. Did your entire cricketing journey feel like a dream when you woke up this morning? For 24 years to play for the country, that is the biggest thing for me. During those 24 years, there were different challenges, but the desire to play for the country was so strong that I had to find solutions to those challenges. During that journey, I had the support of my family, coaches, friends, players – a lot of people were with me. That was a dream journey of 24 years but last night, when I sat back and thought about it, it still hadn’t sunk in that I won’t play cricket again. But I will go somewhere and play some cricket. If I have to talk about those 24 years… in short, all I will say is, it was a dream journey and I have no regrets at leaving cricket. I felt it was the right time to stop playing cricket and all I can say is, it was an enjoyable journey. You had said you would stop playing when you stop enjoying the game. How did you arrive at this decision to stop playing? I was enjoying it, but honestly speaking, I have always maintained that the day I get the feeling that I should stop playing cricket, I will definitely tell you all. I remember there have been questions about my retirement for a few years, and I have always said that when I get the feeling, I will let you know. After playing for 24 years, you have to appreciate that I had many injuries in the past and to overcome those injuries was not easy. Somewhere down the line, a stage comes in life when your body gives you the message, ‘Enough, enough of this physical load’. I think the body requires rest now. I felt the body was not able to take that load consistently. If I had training sessions, it was becoming an effort. Earlier when I trained, everything used to happen automatically. But of late, I used to feel that instead of training, let me sit back and watch some TV. There were some question marks. And when I tried to find answers, I felt that this is the perfect time to leave the game. I requested the BCCI to have the last match in Mumbai because before this match, my mother had never seen me play a ball in her life. She never told me that she wanted to come to a match. I wanted it to be a surprise for her that I was making this arrangement for her but through your help, she came to know through TV channels that this match was in Mumbai and especially for her. This match obviously became really, really special to me. But the answer to your question is that when I got the feeling that it is time to stop, I took that decision. What did you do this morning, on your first day after retirement? I woke up this morning at 6.15. I go according to my body clock. I woke up at 6.15 yesterday, and again at the same time today. I suddenly realised that I didn’t need to quickly have a shower and get ready for a match. I made myself a cup of tea and enjoyed a nice breakfast with my wife. It was a relaxed morning. A lot of people had sent me their wishes, so I spent some time responding to those text messages and thanking them for their support and good wishes over the last 24 years. And now I am here in front of you. "Those 22 yards have given me everything in life. Whatever I have today is because I spent time between those 22 yards." © BCCI The lasting image is of you going back to the pitch. What went through your mind when you went and paid your respects to the pitch? I knew that never ever in my life during an international match would I get to do that again, and that is where my life started. Those 22 yards have given me everything in life. Whatever I have today is because I spent time between those 22 yards. It’s like a temple for me. I just wanted to say a big thank you to cricket. Every time I go to bat, I always touch the wicket and take the blessings and that’s what I did yesterday. I didn’t say it publicly, but I just thanked cricket for everything I got in life. It was as simple as that, nothing complicated. It was a very emotional moment. I remember when I was thinking about retirement and trying to arrive at a decision, I was not as emotional as this because I knew it was the right decision. My family, everyone was emotional, but I wasn’t that emotional. I became emotional when I got the kind of send-off I did from the players. I got emotional when I went to the wicket and when I was coming back from the wicket. Actually, when I was talking to the wicket, then I got emotional. Whenever I see those images on TV, that particular moment, I still get emotional. Otherwise I was not that emotional because I knew I had taken the right decision. I think the thought I would not be able to go back there again for a competitive match, rather to put it simply and in short, to represent India, that made me emotional. How difficult have the last few hours been? Has it sunk in yet that you will not be playing for the country? I said earlier that when I went to the pitch and stood in those 22 yards, I realised that this was the last time I was standing in that place, in front of a packed stadium as a part of the Indian team. This will never happen again. I was emotional about that, and couldn’t control my tears. Knowing that I would never have a cricket bat in my hand here, playing for India, was really emotional. There have been many wonderful moments. You guys might have noticed that I could not look up while shaking hands with my team-mates and the West Indian players. I didn’t want to be rude, but I didn’t want anyone to see my face in tears. In spite of all this, I know that the decision I took was correct. Fans want you to keep playing. How will you be associated with cricket? Cricket has been my life. I have said in an interview that cricket is my oxygen. Out of 40 years, I have played 30 years of proper cricket. 75% of my life has been cricket. So at different levels, I will be associated with cricket, maybe not in the immediate future. I have played for 24 years, it has been 24 hours since my retirement, I think I should get at least 24 days to relax. Let’s see what happens after that. Even though physically I will not be playing for India, in my heart I will always be playing for India and praying for India’s victory. Whether I am a part of the team or not really doesn’t matter. What I think as an Indian is that whenever India participates in any field, not just cricket, India comes first and then the rest. There have been several congratulatory messages and gifts that have come your way. Is the Bharat Ratna the best award you have got from the nation? Yesterday, I said that this award is for my mother and it is for all the sacrifices she has made right from my birth. When you are a child, it is difficult to understand life. You don’t know what your parents have to go through to make you happy. They have sacrificed everything and the beauty about it is, till this date, I was never told ‘We did this for you.’ When you grow up, you realise all those things. That’s the reason I feel this award is for my mother. And not just her, I would like to go a step further. It is not just my mother but like my mother, there are millions and millions of mothers in India who sacrifice thousands of things for their children. So I would like to share this award with all the mothers for all the sacrifices they have made. I am humbled and honoured that this award is bestowed upon me. This is for my contribution to cricket over the last 24 years. When you are growing up, all you want to do is go out and give your best, score hundreds, take wickets, take catches, run-outs and win matches, and keep bettering your performances. I have just tried to do that. And while doing that, people have appreciated my performance and the way they have responded has given me the strength to go out and repeat that performance. The award belongs to the entire nation, I would say. I am truly honoured. Also at this stage, I would like to congratulate Professor CNR Rao for receiving the Bharat Ratna. I think it is a great honour for me to be named alongside Dr Rao because his contribution in the field of science is immense. It’s just that cricket is always played in front of thousands and thousands of people in the stadium and whatever he has done has never happened in front of thousands. But his contribution is immense, so I want to take this opportunity to congratulate him and wish him all the best. You are the first sportsperson to be awarded the Bharat Ratna. Can this set a trend? I am giving an opinion which will be heard by the world. I received this award on behalf of all my countrymen. I respect the award. It’s a special award. This is the ultimate (civilian honour). What more, beyond this? As for other sportsmen, I would say that I have accepted this award on behalf of them also. We have had a history of great sportsmen and sportswomen. I have grown up hearing their names. We have all grown in that culture. Their contribution can never be forgotten. In my opinion, the doors have opened for the future. I pray that in future, there is appreciation for all great performances by our sportsmen and sportswomen. This award should go to special sportsmen. "Achrekar sir always reminded me that the game is bigger than any player and you have to respect it. And that is what I have done always." © BCCI You said yesterday that (Ramakant) Achrekar had never said ‘well played’ to you in 29 years. Yesterday he said well done after you got the Bharat Ratna. Do you think it took too long for the compliment to come? At the outset, I must say that I could come this far only because of the blessings of Achrekar sir. There were others along with him who were there to guide me, some coaches also. I could come this far because of their guidance. Achrekar sir and my brother Ajit were a solid team. One taught me on the field, and the other guided me at home. These discussions have been around for 30 years. Even the other night, he (Ajit) told me how I could have played this shot better (after his dismissal). This is the beauty of our relationship. I cannot describe this relationship in words. True, sir had never said well played. (But) the reason was very clear, that he did not want cricket and success to go to my head. He always reminded me that the game is bigger than any player and you have to respect it. And that is what I have done always. Every time I made runs, I expected the compliment will come now. But it never happened. And that is why I had said jokingly yesterday that hereafter, there is not going to be any competitive match for me, so at least now take that chance to say ‘well played’ because I am not going to get complacent now. He called me after the award announcement last night and said well done. He was very happy, and I was very delighted that he was very happy. The joy of receiving such awards becomes more when you share it with some special people and that is what happened with me last night. Your brother Ajit had a dream for you. How will you repay him? We lived the dream together. I represented the country, and along with that I was representing Ajit also. I can’t describe it in words, what he has done for me. When we met yesterday, I could sense he was emotional but was trying his best to hide it. At the same time, he looked relaxed and relieved. The manner in which I retired and the warm response from the public can never be planned. It is decided by God. And I thank God profusely to have blessed me with this day. I couldn’t have asked for more. Ajit had the same feeling yesterday. We didn’t speak much, but he was relieved that everything went as we had desired. Are you happy with your last innings of 74, and what was your mother’s reaction? My mother was extremely happy. Earlier, I was not sure whether she would come or not because it’s a little difficult for her to travel. That was the only reason I requested that this match be played in Mumbai. After the first day itself, I was worried that she might not be able to sit there for long. For safety, I had also told MCA (Mumbai Cricket Association) to keep a room for my mother at the Garware guesthouse. But my mother preferred to sit and watch each and every ball. It is special, and when I went to meet her in the president’s box, I could see in her eyes what it meant. We are not people who get carried away and respond differently. It was a very controlled and balanced reaction. But she spoke to me more through her eyes than her words. After your sandstorm knock (in Sharjah in 1998), you said that your mother was in tears after seeing that. When you look back, which is the knock that has given you most satisfaction in life? The beauty of my family is that they never lost balance. Whether I scored a 100 or 15 or 20, it did not matter. My father and mother always had encouraging words for me. I was able to perform well since my school days because the balance was maintained at home. Nobody got carried away with my good performances and celebrated those occasions endlessly. Like any other Indian family, we used to buy a packet of sweets, offer it to the almighty and give thanks. That process continues. Even yesterday, my mother said she’d kept sweets in front of God. That will never stop. It’s something I have learnt over the years from my parents. When you grow up, you understand more of what your parents have done for you. This is one of those things. Their reaction to me, when I got back from any tour, was never related to how I performed. It was more about parents and their child. It has always stayed that way. And what would you like Arjun to be? See, as a father, I will say leave Arjun Tendulkar alone. I will say let him enjoy cricket, and don’t burden him with expectations, saying his father had performed like this and he should also perform like that. If I had such pressure on me, then I would have a pen in my hand because my father was a professor of literature. That time nobody has questioned my father as to why has your son got a cricket bat in his hand, why not a pen? Arjun has opted for a cricket bat in his hand, and he’s passionate about cricket. I will say that you need to be madly in love with cricket to bring the best, and he’s madly in love with cricket. That’s what matters. I don’t want to put pressure on him whether he performs or not. You shouldn’t also put pressure on him. You need to leave a young player free so that he’s able to perform and enjoy cricket. That’s what I expect, and what lies in future is determined by God, and not by us. You have been a true role model for youngsters. Do you have any plans of starting a cricket academy so that you can help bring out more Sachins? It’s a nice thought that I need to be involved with cricket and I would definitely be. It is not just because I have retired. Even before I retired, I have spent time with youngsters from Under-19 teams to Ranji Trophy teams. It’s just that I have not made those things public. I like interacting with players. It’s just nice to share your knowledge and sometimes understand their problems also, which in return teaches you more about the game. I have thoroughly enjoyed those interactions and I will continue to do so. It may not be done publicly, it may be done quietly at a very low profile, but I would like to help the youngsters, the next generation, and just share my thoughts and be involved with cricket. You have watched the progress of young Indian batsmen from close quarters. How do you view your influence on them? And whose success have you enjoyed the most? To answer your last question first, I enjoy everyone’s success. It’s about team sport, and in team sport, it doesn’t matter who performs well. Out of 11 players, you will not see all 11 performing well. There will be two or three exceptional performances, and they will be supported by the rest. As long as that consistency is maintained, it doesn’t matter who performs. Talking about the new generation, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the team. I know that someone like Bhuvneshwar Kumar wasn’t even born when I started playing for India. I have told them jokingly, wish me ‘Good morning sir’ when I come to the dressing room. But seriously, it has been a joy to work with them and being part of the squad. It’s not that whatever I am saying is 100% correct. If you understand what they are also telling, then you will become a better student of the cricket. I think that process will continue till the time I stop breathing. If you are prepared to learn, you will learn, and that’s what I have maintained all along. I have shared my various experiences with them, and then about my batting and my observations about their batting and what should they do. It is fun to do all that and I have always done that. That’s not only because I am the senior-most player in the side. Even when I was the junior-most member in the side, I would still do that. It’s about talking cricket, breathing cricket, it’s all about cricket. It doesn’t matter at what stage of life you are; I enjoyed talking cricket with various players, and it was fun. What have been the best, and most disappointing, moments in your cricketing life? The best moment… I will say that was when we won the World Cup here two years ago. It was my dream to win the World Cup. But I had to wait for 22 years, and that was such a long period. But God helped me see that day, and that was a special moment. I will also say that yesterday was also a very special day for me. The way people responded to me…I would like to say a big thank you to everyone. It was very special for me to see that reaction from people. So, these two moments have been very special for me. If you ask me about the disappointing moment, then I will say it came in the 2003 World Cup. We were playing very well in that tournament, reached the final. It has been a big disappointment for me that we couldn’t cross the final hurdle despite playing well. Like any other sportsman, I was also disappointed. Is it true that you looked at pressure as a blessing, and believed injury would bring good luck? I never thought of injuries as good luck. During the times when I was injured , it used to be very difficult because the injuries that I had, coincidentally, were uncommon injuries. To overcome injuries and come back to play wasn’t easy. Each time, there were different goals ahead – like I had only two months to become fit, so let me put as much effort as possible in training during those two months. But it is not that if the recovery time is three months, I can work out extra harder in the gym for one and a half months and start playing. It doesn’t happen that way. When injuries happen, you need the help of nature to recover fully. And it’s really important to respect nature. When I had the tennis elbow, it took four and a half months after surgery for it to become alright and the doctor had told me that I would be able to play competitive cricket after four and a half months. I tried to come back earlier, but it was just not possible. All I will say is you need to respect time. The challenges that were there weren’t easy, they were difficult. Sometimes I felt that my career was over, that I might not be able to lift a bat again. After the tennis elbow surgery, I could not even lift Arjun’s plastic bat. And when I went to practice for the first time with a season ball, on the ground, there were 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds fielding, and they were stopping my hardest hit balls within 10 or 15 yards. I felt I don’t think I can play anymore. At that time, the pressure you feel, that is completely different. I don’t think you can continue thinking of injury as a blessing. It was a difficult phase in my life and because of the support of a lot of people, I could come back, so I would like to say thank you once again to them. "The beauty of my family is that they never lost balance. Whether I scored a 100 or 15 or 20, it did not matter." © BCCI Where do critics stand in your book? I observe it to a certain stage about who is writing and about what subject he is writing. Opinions will be available all around the world. A stage comes when you are convinced as to which person’s advice you should follow and who are the ones who offer constructive criticism and what is the motive behind it. I don’t think I have paid much attention to it because those who were guiding me were by my side and they didn’t hold a pen for a long time. They had either a cricket bat in their hand or cricket thoughts in their mind to encourage me to perform better. I was normally interacting with such people whose interests were in how I could make more runs and how I could perform better. Beyond that, I didn’t think much about the critics. Many believe the quality of cricket from West Indies devalued your last two Tests. Please understand, West Indies have world-class players. This sport is the greatest leveller, and there are ups and downs. There have been a few occasions where we haven’t fared well and we have been in that boat to understand how it feels. At certain times, things just don’t work out and I would say it was just one of those things where things didn’t work out for them. They are a terrific side, they play cricket in the right spirit and that is what matters. I think as long as you turn up to give your best and play cricket the way it is meant to be played, according to me, then you score full marks there. India have had a foreign coach for more than 13 years now, and some have advocated a return to an Indian coach. What are your thoughts on the subject? I don’t think it is more about foreign coach. It is about who is coaching and how can they bring the best results for India, and how consistently they can do that. That is what matters. I don’t think along the lines of there has to be a foreign coach or there has to be an Indian coach. To me, there should be a proper coach who understands the players, he is more like your friend. At this level, we all know how to play a cover drive. But when something goes wrong, it is not technical as such but sometimes, it is between the ears. So who can you sit with and sort that out is what eventually matters. I feel a coach is a coach. It really doesn’t matter where he comes from. As long as the relationship between the coach and the player is a healthy relationship where they are more friends, and any sort of problem which a player has he should be able to confide in this coach and also know for a fact that it would not be leaked out, that is really important because you have to have that confidence in your coach. You have been named after Sachin Dev Burman. What is your favourite song? There are many of his songs that I listen to. To single out any one song will be difficult. Music is my passion. I enjoy listening to music. In a good mood, there are some songs I listen to. When I feel low, I listen to some other songs. Music has been a constant companion of mine. I respect various artists, composers and singers because it’s not easy to reach the level these people have reached. There are people who have been on the top for decades. I respect them. Will you lead the campaign to include cricket in the Olympics? As I said, it’s been hardly 24 hours since I retired and you are already engaging me in various other things. Give me some time to breathe, we will talk about them in time to come. What was your favourite moment playing against England? How will the Ashes go? I think the Ashes are something both nations are looking forward to. England want to prove a point that they can go Down Under and give Australia a difficult time. Australia would want to bounce back and prove England wrong. It’s going to be exciting. The way I saw Mitchell Johnson bowl here in India, if he is part of the squad, it should be interesting. I have two memorable moments against England. The first was my maiden hundred, at Old Trafford. And the second was in 2008 when we chased 387 in Chennai. That has to be a special one for me. Many feel that with your retirement, their childhood has suddenly ended, they finally feel that they are in their 40s now… I have heard that the new saying is that the 40s are the new 20s, so don’t think you are 40. Continue to be a 20-year-old, it works better. We are all children when we play cricket and that is how it is meant to be. We need to enjoy cricket to its fullest and cricket has always brought out that childlike exuberance whenever I have been on the field. I hope that is the case with all cricket lovers. As and when you hold a cricket bat or you bowl a few balls, you should have that energy. That bubbliness has to be there, it is fun to do that. Link to comment
Guest BossBhai Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 -- Removed on request of the user -- Link to comment
Chandan Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Thanks Bossbhai for the wonderful video. This is one page i'd like to share with all the fans: SACHIN FAREWELL: http://goo.gl/wHBIfh And now this article: http://goo.gl/yao5PW Little Master makes his Big Exit: Tendulkar steps out for the final time as India bids farewell to the superstar they first glimpsed in 1989 By LAWRENCE BOOTH PUBLISHED: 23:00 GMT, 12 November 2013 | Mumbai has never needed an excuse to unfurl the bunting for its favourite son. But in the last few days India's greatest city has moved into overdrive. Sachin Tendulkar is about to play his 200th Test. And, as befits a cricketer who likes to deal in nice round numbers, it will also be his last. The mood is poised somewhere between a funeral and a celebration. Most observers are content simply to shower praise on one of the most enduring phenomena in all sport, possibly because they know that the alternative — life without Tendulkar — is just too bleak to contemplate. India's favourite son: Sachin Tendulkar is about to play in his 200th and final Test for India. The country has gone into overdrive and Daily Mail readers can win these original drawings by legendary artist Paul Trevillion Little master: Tendulkar's masterful 24-year career is about to come to an end Hero: Indian artist Ranjit Dahiya works on a mural of Tendulkar in Mumbai - he is worshipped like a God in his home country Record breaker: Tendulkar holds just about every batting record in the sport When the second Test between India and West Indies begins at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium at 4am UK time tomorrow, Tendulkar will embark on the last leg of a journey that began at the age of 16 in a Test match at Karachi. That was in 1989, six days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As if in sympathy, Tendulkar has spent much of the 24 years since constructing his own impenetrable edifice, leaving bowlers to bang their heads against something akin to bricks and mortar. Sportsmail are offering one reader the chance to win the brilliant original artwork of Sachin Tendulkar by master illustrator Paul Trevillion, while 10 runners up will receive prints. CLICK HERE for more information and to enter the competition. Final time: The match will be the last since Tendulkar's debut against Pakistan in 1989 The best: Super Sachin holds a number of records including most Test runs, most hundreds in Tests and ODIs, and the first player to reach 100 international centuries Loved: Indian fans celebrate with a picture of their hero Most international cricketers would be thrilled with even 10 years at the highest level; Tendulkar’s career has spanned four decades. And in that time he has moulded the psyche of the second-most populous nation on earth. Even by Indian standards, the excitement here is palpable. Giant advertising billboards taken out by Star Sports, who are broadcasting a series that was shoehorned into the schedule as part of the careful stage-management of Tendulkar’s retirement, are proclaiming a simple tagline: ‘Believe’. No one seems especially minded to ask what it is we are supposed to believe, although the most plausible explanation lies in the nickname given to him by younger members of the Indian team: ‘Bhagwan’ is the Hindi word for God — and right now Mumbai feels like a city of 20 million believers. Then and now: Trevillion's pictures show a fresh faced Tendulkar and a more recent likeness of the legend Tendulkar’s home town is not alone. When the first Test took place at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens last week, Bengali spectators held up signs proclaiming ‘Godbye’, happy in the knowledge that this was one spelling error that would not need correcting. Even Tendulkar’s mother, Rajni, will break the habit of a lifetime this week and turn up to watch her son play; a special wheelchair ramp will facilitate her entry into the stadium, where security staff will presumably be on red alert to spare her an ear-bashing from quote- hungry journalists. The hope is that things go rather better in Mumbai than they did in Kolkata, where India hammered West Indies by an innings, and Tendulkar’s sole knock produced only 10 runs. Best of British: Tendulkar's highest score against England came at Headingley in 2002; he scored 193 Winner: Tendulkar and his Indian team-mates celebrate winning the World Cup on home soil Farewell party: Tendulkar is welcomed by Cricket Association of Bengal ahead of his final game What a performance: Tendulkar became the first batsman to score a double-century in a one-day match against South Africa in February 2010 To make matters worse, he fell victim to an iffy lbw decision from English umpire Nigel Llong, who was duly made a convenient scapegoat in next day’s press. One local paper described the dismissal as a ‘tragedy’ – proof that, even after all these years, Tendulkar and hyperbole sleep in the same bed. The Cricket Association of Bengal, meanwhile, had planned to shower Eden Gardens with 199kg of rose petals, but that was scuppered when India won on the third day: under-fire officials insisted the intention had been to book the planes for the fourth and the fifth. Mumbai has not escaped censure, either. Only 3,500 tickets (the Wankhede holds 32,000) have been made available to the public and the website selling them crashed immediately. The great and the good of contemporary cricket have got in line to deliver their verdicts. West Indian great Brian Lara compared Tendulkar to Muhammad Ali, while Rahul Dravid — a long-time former team-mate — said he would choose Tendulkar ‘to bat for my life’. One of few dissenting voices has come from former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, who had the temerity to allude to Tendulkar’s mediocre record over the past couple of years. ‘It’s only because he’s Tendulkar that he’s been given that run,’ said Ganguly, apparently taking his life in his hands. ‘It is the right send-off for a champion but if I was in his place, I’d have gone a year earlier.’ Even accounting for the fact that Tendulkar’s most recent Test hundred came in January 2011 at Cape Town, his statistics remain wondrous. Textbook: The batsman depicts a perfect cover drive Goodbye: Tendulkar will say farewell to his billion fans The next-most capped Test cricketers are the former Australian captains Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, who both made 168 appearances; Dravid and South Africa’s Jacques Kallis are on 164. And Tendulkar might have been even further ahead had India not turned its attention so determinedly to one-day cricket and Twenty20. Then there are the runs. Of the 55 players – the majority of them batsmen – to have appeared in at least 100 Tests, only two have a higher batting average than Tendulkar’s 53.71: Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara (56.98) and Kallis (55.44). And neither Sangakkara nor Kallis had to placate a billion fans. It seems strange to think that, in a country where 60 per cent of the population is under 30, memories of Tendulkar’s debut now have to be passed down from one generation to the next. The whole of India is hoping – no, praying – that his finale will be spoken of with the same reverence. Link to comment
Chandan Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 http://goo.gl/Rk2nx7 38* Posted on November 14, 2013 by sidvee Call me a fool but I was quite certain this was going to end in disappointment. Maybe a nervy 15. Or two aw-shucks shots followed by a death-rattle-oh-squat-it-kept-low. Anything more than 20, I told myself, would be a bonus. Fluency? No chance. What a fool I was. Thankfully. A few points: 1 How surprised were you by how quickly Tendulkar walked in to bat? Gavaskar mentioned this on air and it was bizarre to see him make his way down the stairs even as Vijay has just begun to leave. Maybe he didn’t realize Vijay was waiting for the umpire to check the no-ball but even then. I have rarely seen him enter so quick, so eagerly. Maybe he wanted to simply get the gushing foreplay out of the way. 2 That first scoring shot was out of the blue. A slog, I thought. Just watching him playing it – and survive with a thick inside edge – released so much tension. The Wankhede was bonkers today (people were cheering every batsman’s four with “Sachin Sachin”). At times I wished for some Wimbledon-like “quiet please” order. I have no idea how Tendulkar even heard what Pujara was saying. God only knows (wink wink). 3 The third four. Cover drive off Gabriel. There were many delectable aspects about this shot – body leaned into the stroke, bat went with the flow, bat caressed ball, ball kissed turf, turf rolled out red carpet… – but there was one thing I can’t get over. Watch the replay. See how his whole body gently bobs up as he completes his follow-through. There’s something musical about that movement – as if feet and bat and toes and torso are enacting a dance. “What… a… shot.” said Gavaskar. Which is totally different from “What a shot”. The silences mean so much. 4 OK, now my hands are shivering. That’s how insane that on-drive was. Admitted, it was Darren Sammy. Admitted, it was a full ball on a flat pitch. Admitted, many batsmen would have struck that for four. But would they have struck it the same way. No. They couldn’t have. They might have been more expansive, more regal, more emphatic. But Tendulkar’s best straight drives are none of these: they are studies in simplicity. The body movement is spare, the bat swing minimal. There is something blatantly painless in the way he executes this. And the follow-through – just an inch of forward movement, and nothing else. There may be batsmen in the future who can play many of the shots in Tendulkar’s repertoire. But nobody, absolutely nobody, can strike a ball so straight with seemingly so little effort. There is only one way I can really describe that shot: “oooof.” ------------------------------------------------------ http://goo.gl/1YWse7 When Sachin Tendulkar walks out to the middle Siddhartha Vaidyanathan : New Delhi, Sun Nov 17 2013, Every Sachin Tendulkar innings is a mini Ganeshotsav, imbued with a sense of occasion, teeming with expectation and possibility. First you must close your eyes. Then you must exercise your memory and, from among the whirlgig of blurry thoughts, images and sequences, you must pick a day of a Test match that Sachin Tendulkar was part of. Maybe it was a game in Melbourne. Or Port of Spain. Or Harare. Maybe it was a sweltering morning in Chennai. Or, maybe, the evening clouds threatened to vanquish the ground at Headingley. Once you have zeroed in on the Test and the venue, you must call to mind a passage of play after India lost their first wicket, a phase when an opener and a No. 3 were battling the new ball, leaving some outside off, searching for gaps, fishing, nicking, ducking, bobbing, sometimes playing out dots, sometimes ticking the score along. Now gradually focus your thoughts, sharpen your memory. And recall those fleeting few seconds when the television camera panned to the Indian dressing room and captured the helmeted No. 4 as he watched the match through the grille of his visor, flitting his eyeballs from side to side, twisting his mouth, and fidgeting with his bat. Freeze that frame. The image must linger. Recall how, in that teensy-weensy interlude, the on-air commentator halted his train of thought, and turned his attention to Tendulkar's current form, or his recent injury, or his importance to the side, or his effect on the opposition, or his stats at the venue, or his significance to the batting line-up, or his place in the pantheon. Try and remember if that Tendulkar image made it to the stadium's giant screen and listen to that ear-splitting din when the crowd went bananas. Now gently forward the match to the fall of the second wicket. India were possibly in a precarious state, or maybe the boat had been steadied. But forget that for the time being because you can't afford to miss that walk down the pavilion stairs. There he is, his bat tucked under his armpit, his gloves about to be strapped on. And look at the reaction — manic fans rattling metallic cages, octogenarians standing in reverence, fathers holding children aloft, ladies shrieking, wizened men in Rastafarian braids surveying his every move, presidents and prime ministers applauding, legendary cricketers awaiting a feast. Focus on his walk to the centre, the glance at the skies, those swirling arms, the shadow straight drive, legs flapping in an urgent stand-and-run, shoulders puffed. Watch him adjust his gloves, then have a word with his batting partner. Consider him as he jerks his head this way and that, ensuring his helmet is exactly in place. And don't forget the late Tony Greig who, in all likelihood, was going ballistic on air. As he gardens the pitch — a tap here, a knock there — cast your eyes on the reporters in the press box, settling into their seats after a hurried smoke break, peeking through their binoculars, and logging on to ESPNcricinfo to estimate the records that could fall that day. Turn to the gaggle of cameramen crouching near the boundary ropes, zooming in on Tendulkar, clicking frame after frame, hoping that one out of the several hundred images turns into a jackpot. Understand the strain they're under. Even a veteran photographer like Patrick Eagar, after covering more than 300 Tests, said he found it "very difficult to take a picture of Tendulkar that has people saying, 'What a good batsman!'" Now watch him take his stance, kicking away dust, scanning the field, marking his guard, practising his straight drive, gauging the position of the sightscreen, nodding his head to no one in particular, squatting, hopping, nudging his trousers, rejigging his crotch-guard, patting his bat once, then twice, and waiting. Watch how still his head is. "You can hear the noise at a ground coming down from all directions," he once told India Today, "but while playing the ball you have to block it out… when the bowler is running up at you, that's the time your concentration levels should peak." Stay attentive. Don't take your eyes off the ball. Watch as it hurtles through 22 yards and arrives at his doorstep. What happened? Did the delivery, like the thunderbolt from Shoaib Akhtar in 1999, shatter your heart? Or did he simply leave it alone outside off, ordering you to calm the heck down? Did he tuck it behind square leg and run the first run so hard — screeching "two two two" — that you wondered if this was some sugar rush? Or did he simply stand erect and crack the ball past the bowler with such grandeur that you were at once forced to take your eyes off the screen with a stunned "oofff". Study him as he constructs his innings, thwarting best-laid plans, bisecting fielders, dabbing, punching. But also look around. Watch how two ball-boys, patrolling the midwicket boundary, rush to gather the ball once it crosses the ropes, desperate to get a piece of the action. Spot Sudhir Gautam, one of Tendulkar's biggest fans, awash in saffron, white, and green paint, waving the flag in the stands. And pick out the spectators sitting above the sightscreen, forever nervous, hoping their movements are not a distraction. Spare a thought for the hundreds of marketing executives, brand managers, and advertising bigwigs, watching him bat, willing him to post a big score, sometimes treating him like a blue chip whose stock price is intricately linked to their wellbeing. And contemplate the life of some bookies across the globe, tracking the score every ball, but unable to start work until Tendulkar was out. Now hear the crowd gasp. Was it a soft dismissal? Did he squat when he lost his stumps? Or was it a dubious lbw? Was the bowler, like Monty Panesar, an ecstatic debutant? Or was he a relative unknown, like Zimbabwean Ujesh Ranchod, celebrating his first (and only) Test wicket? Spare a thought for the umpire who made the call. And notice how the scorers and stats freaks go into overdrive. Recall how he trudged back to the pavilion, the bat under his armpit, his face tinged with regret. Don't miss that crestfallen spectator in the bleachers with his hands on his head. Think of the pains he might have endured to get there. Maybe, he had to run from pillar to post to procure his ticket. Maybe, he maintained the posture for a whole session, controlling his pulsing bladder, enduring the blazing sun, convinced he had a role to play in Tendulkar's innings. Listen to the applause die down. And amid the glum murmurs, feel the prominent emptiness. This is not the story of one Tendulkar innings. Over 24 years, his every walk to the middle, a mini Ganeshotsav, was imbued with a sense of occasion, teeming with expectation and possibility. Hardened fans went weak in the knees. Many prayed. Some broke coconuts. To begin to understand why Tendulkar meant so much to so many, one must go back to CLR James writing about WG Grace in his seminal Beyond the Boundary: "W.G.'s batting figures, remarkable as they are, lose all their true significance unless they are seen in close relation with the history of cricket itself and the social history of England. Unless you do this you fall head foremost into the trap of making comparisons with Bradman. Bradman piled up centuries. W.G. built a social organisation." It remains a wonder how one little Indian achieved both. .............................................. Link to comment
Sachin=GOD Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 Sachin Tendulkar: A Question of Legacy Experts have long pondered the tedious question of how history will remember Sachin Tendulkar. The answer lies simply in the generations of cricketers he has influenced, inspired The year is 2037. A 16-year-old is limbering up in the bullpen with his coach’s voice booming through the speakers in his helmet. He dare not press the button that will mute the tirade that threatens to be the background score for his debut. He is forced to listen to a litany of reasons why he would never be a Sachin Tendulkar—and this was supposed to be motivational. The boy grits his teeth, shakes his head and tries to wish away the pressure. How could anyone match up? They say the illustrious old man of world cricket—now living a quiet life on an island named after him—could make the ball travel higher than the tallest skyscraper; that he mysteriously grew wings while running between the wickets; that he made bowlers break down in the middle of a game. And this was in the 1990s, when bats were made of wood. He had seen some old videos but they were not half as grand as the tales they were told at camp. The kid had become a national story because he was considered similarly talented but even the thought of measuring up to Tendulkar was as onerous as taking on all 20 Avengers in one go. Before fear could entirely overtake him, it was time to run out into the glass dome. The arena reverberated with chants of his name. The only way he knew how to calm himself was with the thought: What would Sachin do? **** Back in 1998, Sachin Tendulkar’s career was getting its final touch of credibility. In a defining moment, Sir Don Bradman, the Australian batting legend, had likened his own batting style to the young Indian’s. Tendulkar was 25 at the time. That affirmation was enough to put any lingering scepticism to rest. He was unreservedly crowned heir apparent to Bradman’s throne. Now, in 2013, Tendulkar is considered the gold standard. You could almost pity the boy he chooses to anoint his successor. Stacking up to him, even sans the superhero cape fantasy writers have a habit of adding, is a fool’s errand: Most modern-day cricketers shrink from any comparison. Since the age of 16, Tendulkar has been a larger-than-life figure dominating world cricket and the collective imagination of its fans. Before he even stepped on to the national stage, he was already the brightest star in the school cricket firmament. Safe to say, where Tendulkar went, the spotlight followed—and it was never as intense as last month when he finally said farewell to the game. Not even his worst critic could resist joining in the sentimental goodbye. However, as the focus shifts to the Indian team’s fortunes in South Africa, and on whom the mantle of the No. 4 batting position will fall, Tendulkar is no longer top of mind. It is as it should be in the after-life, as it were, of a sportsman, which is drenched with the inevitability of moving on. Already on the maidans, the young boys talk of newer heroes. “It is not that they don’t mention Sachin but they are equally enamoured with the likes of Virat [Kohli] and [MS] Dhoni,” says Raju Pathak, coach of Rizvi Springfield, the school that has produced prodigious run-scorers over the last few years (most recently, boy wonder Prithvi Shaw). This transition has been going on for the last couple of years, he says. But the Tendulkar effect is less about direct transference and more about a chain reaction. Even the youngest admirer of a Rohit Sharma or a Virat Kohli—or of their successors or those after them—will inextricably be linked to Tendulkar by virtue of his influence in reshaping the sport over the last couple of decades. Picture Indian cricket as a family tree and you will find him at the apex, connected to the very last link. His teammates, both old and new, are less intimidated, more grateful, for the association. For those still scrambling to define it, this, here, is very quietly his legacy. **** Fact: The Tendulkar legend may not assume the mythical proportions imagined at the beginning of this piece. This is unlike Bradman, who has become almost sacred; his place as the best batsmen ever is non-negotiable in some parts of the world, even though there are hardly any left who have watched him play. Tendulkar, on the other hand, is more open to scrutiny because his life and times are not left to storytellers and blurred recollections. So as his records get rewritten, his technique analysed and personal failings noted, the memories will become hazier, less imposing. This is the lot of any modern great. Ask Michael Schumacher. But, even diminished in some future date, his legacy will continue to be visible to those that seek to see it—in the generations of cricketers that have either modelled their game on him or been inspired by his attitude towards cricket. Experts have long pondered the tedious question of how history will remember Tendulkar. They have tried to answer it over the years with varying epithets and narratives. Inevitably, the discussion veers to his life after the cricket is over. Would Tendulkar do much to better the sport, will he open an academy or will he take on the BCCI? But his post-cricket occupation, while potentially relevant, hardly defines his legacy. As cricketers of all manner—former, current and prospective—will testify using that ageless cliché, with Tendulkar all that mattered was how he played the game. His purported successor, Virat Kohli, openly attributes his interest in the game to his reverence of Tendulkar. “I always wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar, all my life,” Kohli told Forbes India in an interview. He sounds like an unabashed fan boy, much like the rest of the Indian dressing room. Not too long ago, he was just that. “The way Sachin used to win matches for us inspired me; I don’t think anything else inspired me so much. I remember I went for a Test match in Delhi. I was about 12 and India was playing Zimbabwe,” says Kohli. “I got tickets for the side stands. I stood there, clasping the railing, hoping that he would come to the boundary once. He came. I was shouting his name. He looked back once and waved and that was a great moment for me. That was a Rs 300 ticket. That was the extent I could go to, to actually see him.” Despite his childish ebullience on the field, Tendulkar’s senior statesman stature in the team was unquestioned. Even the captain, MS Dhoni, has been quoted as saying that he is still shy about approaching Tendulkar on non-cricket matters. Happily, this does not come in the way of his approachability on cricketing matters: He is ready to influence and advice, even unsolicited in many cases. The animated appreciation from his people—without a tinge of insecurity—is equally telling about the respect he commands and the grace with which he gets it. “He taught us not only about the importance of good performance but also the importance of good on-field conduct. He taught us about what sort of mindset you need to have when you play abroad,” Rohit Sharma, another batsman who claims to have modelled his game on Tendulkar, told reporters after the Wankhede farewell match. Sharma, like others, basked in his older colleague’s approval. “Whenever I do well, he always lets me know and congratulates me and wishes me luck. That’s all you need from him,” says Kohli. “It’s just amazing to speak to him about cricket. Even now, after 24 years of cricket, if you speak sense to him, he will be very keen on what you are trying to say.” Tendulkar’s readiness to share ideas—not just give but take—has also helped with his own longevity. The last couple of years were peppered with disappointments and failure, but there was a dignity with which he handled the unusual negativity from the media. No justifications were offered; just an exit plan was rolled out whereby he started withdrawing from different forms of the game one by one. And even in the end, he was all about the cricket, reminding his now former team that they were privileged to be able to serve the sport. Even ‘god’ was only a servant of the game. **** The boy, meanwhile, took his stance on the 22 yards. The nerves were calmer, his mind sharpened. It had taken him a minute to switch gears but he was back in the zone. You see, he had figured out what Tendulkar would have done: Silenced the intrusive voice and prepared to face the coach’s anger. He had read somewhere that Tendulkar had found the distraction of other people’s expectations an unnecessary burden, especially when he already carried the weight of his own. He had been a boy whose talent was spotted at the age of 10; clarity of purpose and lightness in the mind were necessary tools to grow as a cricketer, which was all Tendulkar had ever wanted to be. This 16-year-old, too, could only dream about the bat hitting the ball. But he had another secret wish. That, perhaps, if he did it well enough, one day Tendulkar might finally notice how he batted somewhat like him. With that faint hope in his heart, he looked straight into the bowler’s eyes, the India flag shining on his helmet. http://forbesindia.com/article/2013-celebrity-100/sachin-tendulkar-a-question-of-legacy/36689/0 Link to comment
Chandan Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 http://goo.gl/gNaLfj The grand piano has left the building Everybody has a Tendulkar story. Everybody has a hole inside them now that he has gone Siddhartha Vaidyanathan November 16, 2013 A one-man entertainment package © Getty Images The show is over. The final episode has ended. The music has faded. The credits have rolled. Done with the presentation. Done with the speech to trump all farewell speeches. Now all we have are the memories. All we have are the stories. It's a weird feeling, this. My mind goes back to the day in 1990, when Doordarshan aired the final episode of Mahabharat. For the previous two years, large parts of the country dutifully stopped functioning at 9am every Sunday. Those without television sets walked or cycled to the houses of friends and relatives. Grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, kids and dogs clustered in living rooms and, for 45 minutes, were rapt in attention. Everything else took a back seat. Mahabharat is merely an example. Because those were the days when everyone in India watched the same shows. Everyone watched the same ads. Hum Log, Fauji, Vikram aur Betaal, "Washing Powder Nirma", "Vicco Turmeric (nahi cosmetic)", "I'm a Complan Boy"… You could sing the first line of an ad jingle and someone listening would complete it for you, word for word, expression for expression, note for note, tun-tun-ta-tuns included. It's in this milieu that Tendulkar emerged, bursting into living rooms with that 18-ball 53 in Peshawar. Almost everyone I know remembers that innings but what's fascinating is that so many people remember exactly where they were and what they were doing that evening. The editor of this website remembers the brand of the black-and-white TV at his friend's house, the colour of the mat beside the TV, the flower vase alongside, the chair he was sitting on. A friend of mine remembers the t-shirt he was wearing that day, a t-shirt he has held on to for all these years. The timing of Tendulkar's entry is crucial. It was an age when most of India had one TV channel, when most homes bought one newspaper, and when vast numbers watched Chitrahaar on Wednesday nights, because, honestly, there was little else to do. He forced his way into a pop-culture scene that was wallowing in Ram Lakhan, Chandni and Maine Pyar Kiya. Frankly, it was a time ripe for alternatives, a time for compelling diversions. And what a terrific diversion he was: a one-man entertainment package, high art for the masses, technical perfection meshed with popcorn-bursting verve. He was blockbuster one day, avant garde the next. Here he was - still head, high elbow - grafting to save Test matches. And there he was - youthful and restless - charging down the pitch and launching the ball into the crowd. Everything about him - his precocious talent, his role in the team, the circumstances around his selection - everything seemed predestined. "I wouldn't call it an accident," said CLR James of WG Grace's colossal effect on English cricket and society. "I don't think a thing like that is an accident. It is clear that he filled a certain need, and that a certain man fills a certain need… Would you call Shakespeare an accident? Or Balzac an accident? Or Michelangelo an accident? Something is required and they do it." Inevitably he was a conversational centerpiece. Everyone has a Tendulkar story. I recently met a man who was convinced he had introduced Tendulkar to his favourite band, Dire Straits. The story ran thus: He had grown up in Mumbai and had gifted an audio cassette to one of Tendulkar's neighbours at Sahitya Sahwas housing colony, who in turn claimed to have lent a young Tendulkar the tape. There were no ifs and buts in this narration, only a dead-cert confidence. Look into the blogosphere or social media (or simply trawl through the comments on stories on this website) and you will read many such tales. Some fans have written about the day they met him, or the day they could have met him, or the day they were too stunned to ask for his autograph, or the time they spotted him at a restaurant, or shared a flight with him. Some of these stories are borrowed from friends, or friends who knew friends who knew someone who… There is no stopping this anecdote avalanche. Even the great novelists might not have spent so much time mulling over their protagonists as much as many Indians have, over the last 24 years, chewed over Tendulkar. Two anecdotes jump out of personal memory. The first is from 2008. India were playing Australia in a Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Tendulkar was surgically taking the bowling apart. In the audience were Neil Harvey, Arthur Morris and Steve Waugh. So was the Australian prime minister. A nonagenarian, who said he had seen Bradman bat "at this very ground", had one question on his lips when he arrived: "Is he still there?" The adulation and cheers showered on Tendulkar that day were befitting an Australian hero. My most vivid image from that game is of raucous schoolkids singing and chanting in the Monty Noble stand. Their exasperated teacher tried to hush them up. "Nobody chants when Sachin is on strike," she said, wanting to restore a semblance of order. The kids quieted for a few seconds. Then one of the boys began a chant: "No-body cha-aants when Sa-aachin strikes. No-body cha-aants when Sa-aachin strikes." The rest of the kids took it up. Soon large parts of the stand joined in. The teacher gave up. She stood no chance. The second instance is from The Oval in 2006. A charity match between a Pakistan XI and an International XI. Returning from a shoulder injury, Tendulkar had blitzed a 26-ball 50 and added 72 golden runs with Brian Lara. After the match, journalists and fans milled around the dressing-room area. Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Chris Cairns walked out. All were hounded for quotes, autographs and photographs. Then out walked Tendulkar, kitbag in one hand, a bat in another, and made his way down an aisle of stairs. Instantly everyone took a step back, as if to clear his path. Nobody even attempted to get close. The clamour turned into a hush. And Tendulkar calmly walked on. I thought of that on Thursday, when the West Indian players and the two umpires provided a guard of honour as he walked in to bat. I thought of that on Friday, when he made his way back to the pavilion after his final Test innings, alone, unmolested, just him on a vast expanse of green. And then again on Saturday, at the end of the match, when his team-mates saluted him with a mobile guard of honour, all the way from the centre to the boundary rope, watching him wipe tears from his eyes. Everyone stepped aside. Everyone cleared his path. And Tendulkar moved on. He leaves behind an immense emptiness. The great novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said that every time he completed a novel he felt like a house that was emptied of its grand piano. And so it is with Indian cricket. After 24 years of dedicated service, after an emotion-drenched Test in Mumbai, the grand piano has left the building. Link to comment
Chandan Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 http://goo.gl/z9R3jL The Master’s Voice Dileep Premachandran | 13 January 2014 Sachin Tendulkar was the boy wonder, the one from whom Gavaskar-like runs and Richards-like dominance were expected. He had yet to become a quasi-diety. © As Sachin Tendulkar walked back to the MCA Pavilion, he paused a couple of times to raise his bat in the direction of the various stands. By then, the eerie silence that greeted his dismissal had made way for the sort of tear-stained ovation that most of us had never seen. Thousands in the stands, dozens in the press box, many more in the swanky corporate hospitality areas… everyone was on their feet, with handclaps, cheers, chants and sobs marking the end of an era. As he glanced one final time at the stand that bears his name, I summoned up another image. The teenager in Perth. Not the boy on the burning deck who made the brilliant 114 that prompted Merv Hughes to tell Allan Border: “This little *****’s going to overtake your records, ABâ€, but the bowler who sent down six balls in a Tri Series game against West Indies two months earlier. India had managed just 126 on a surface that provided extravagant seam movement in addition to being lightning fast. Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall, Patrick Patterson and Anderson Cummins had been nearly unplayable. Ravi Shastri top scored with 33, but laboured 110 balls for those runs. Tendulkar, who had made just one with the bat, was thrown the ball in the 41st over of the West Indian reply. Cummins and Patterson, the final pair, were at the crease, with six needed for victory. Bowling off a few paces, he got the ball to hoop in as though he was a slow-medium version of Imran Khan. The penultimate ball of the over moved too much through the air though, and Patterson was able to squirt it through midwicket for three runs that tied the scores. Tendulkar, just 18 at the time, was unfazed. He went back to his mark, shuffled in and pitched one a foot outside off stump. The inward movement drew Cummins into the stroke, and the thick outside edge was brilliantly held by Mohammad Azharuddin, diving to his left at second slip. In the pandemonium that followed, the kid seemed the calmest person on the field. Nearly a century earlier, Rudyard Kipling – no fan of “flannelled fools†– had written: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…†No words were more apt for Tendulkar. Back then, he was the boy wonder, the one from whom Gavaskar-like runs and Richards-like dominance were expected. He had yet to become a quasi-diety. The burden of expectation was already there, but it hadn’t become an Atlas-like load. Irrepressible exuberance hadn’t yet made way for inscrutability. He was just “our kidâ€, albeit the one we all wanted to be. How does anyone deal with such hero worship, with being in the pantheon of millions of believers? It’s hard to think of anyone in modern sport that has inspired such adulation. Diego Maradona came close in his glory years, when his most fervent fans simply referred to him as D10S, a combination of the number on the back of his shirt and the Spanish word for the almighty. But even as they idolised him, Argentinians were well aware of the dark side, which manifested itself both on and off the field. “He is someone many people want to emulate, a controversial figure, loved, hated, who stirs great upheaval, especially in Argentina,†said Jorge Valdano, who played alongside him on the 1986 World Cup-winning team. “Stressing his personal life is a mistake. Maradona has no peers inside the pitch, but he has turned his life into a show, and is now living a personal ordeal that should not be imitated.†Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 103 saw India ease to the target of 387 against England in Chennai in 2008, prompting Kevin Pietersen to call him Superman. © AFP Tendulkar, incredibly, wore the India colours for nearly a quarter century without his image as keeper of the flame being tarnished. There was the odd hullaballoo – allegations of ball tampering in South Africa in 2001, noises from the Australian camp about changed testimony during the Harbhajan Singh racism hearing – but for the most part, teammates and opponents alike cited him as the beau ideal for what a cricketer should be. There was also little to cherish in the winter of Maradona’s playing years. His international career ended with a positive drugs test during USA 1994. When he returned to La Bombonera and his beloved Boca Juniors a year later, he was a wan imitation of the player that gave defenders vertigo. Addicted to cocaine, and with a paunchy figure that seemed more suited to the deckchair than for playmaking, he was yesterday’s hero. When he asked to be taken off at half time in his final game, against bitter rivals River Plate, the man who replaced him helped transform a 0-1 deficit into a 2-1 win. In the years that followed, Juan Roman Riquelme would become a Boca idol second only to El Diego. It was Riquelme I thought of once Tendulkar had vanished into the pavilion. The man who marked his guard, Virat Kohli, is temperamentally as far removed from Tendulkar as the laidback Riquelme was from Maradona. And when he laced the first ball he faced through cover for four, it was a sign that Indian cricket would not look back. The generation that Tendulkar inspired was ready. There had been plenty to savour in Tendulkar’s twilight years. Between 2008 and 2011, at the heart of a team that would take the No.1 ranking in Test cricket and win the World Cup, he played with the freedom and authority that had been on view during the late 1990s, when he could scarcely do any wrong. In 2010, as India consolidated top-dog status in Test cricket, he scored 1,562 runs with seven hundreds. He started the following year with a fabulous 146 at Newlands, a mano a mano tussle with Dale Steyn that was as good as anything cricket has seen. Those that watched it would never have imagined that it would be his 51st and last Test century. Tours of England and Australia saw only glimpses of the old mastery. By the time the next home season came round, the decline appeared irreversible. New Zealand’s young bowling attack kept breaching his defence, and though there were a couple of innings of substance against England and Australia, there were few signs of the batsman that Kevin Pietersen had called Superman after an unbeaten 103 saw India past a target of 387 in Chennai in December 2008. The countdown to 100 international centuries – a media-manufactured apples-and-oranges landmark – had become the longest circus the sport had ever seen, and it clearly disturbed the equilibrium of even Tendulkar, the man whose serenity when on “his†turf had been his greatest quality. His critics spoke of selfishness and an obsession with records, while his teammates grew weary of the endless questions about the significance of No.100. The last two years were not golden ones – he averaged 32.34 in 23 Tests after that Cape Town epic – but declining form didn’t mean that Tendulkar became a parody of himself as Maradona had. There was no shooting at journalists from a balcony with an air gun, no foulmouthed rants at fellow players. Just the quiet retreat. With West Indies not able to combat reverse swing or spin, Kolkata got to see just one Tendulkar innings at Eden Gardens. © BCCI With West Indies not able to combat reverse swing or spin, Kolkata got to see just one Tendulkar innings at Eden Gardens. © BCCI As for his peers, the respect and hero worship remained. When Shakib Al Hasan, who was two when Tendulkar made his debut, wrote a newspaper column after hearing of his retirement, he started it thus: “I should have sought the permission of Sachin before attempting to write on him. He is the God of cricket and how can I be expected to write about the God?†Not The Greatest, not Cricketer in Excelsis. But God. No pressure. The Eden Gardens in Kolkata has never done moderation. As far as venues go, it’s cricket’s girl with the curl. When they’re good, the crowd can be incredible, a raucous, knowledgeable 12th man capable of introducing doubt into the minds of even the toughest opposition. On their bad days, when they turn on the home team and light bonfires in the stands, they can be an embarrassment, a seething mass of humanity utterly lacking perspective. Perspective was in very short supply during Tendulkar’s 199th Test. It was as though administrators and fans in the stands were in a competition for who would come up with the corniest tributes. A music album with Tendulkar paeans came close, but was comfortably trumped by the Cricket Association of Bengal’s plan to have a low-flying aircraft disgorge 199 kilogrammes of rose petals over the Eden Gardens on the fifth and final day of the game. Fortunately, West Indies were so inept that the Test was over in three. On the eve of the match, Tendulkar had been asked to pose for pictures next to a wax model of him created by a local artist. It wasn’t exactly Madame Tussauds, but he didn’t complain, talking to the artist and signing autographs even as his focus was a hundred yards away, on the 22-yard strip that he called his temple. With West Indies not able to combat reverse swing or spin, Kolkata would get to see just one Tendulkar innings. Twice, he flicked Shane Shillingford through midwicket, as he once had Warne in his heyday. But when Nigel Llong upheld a leg-before appeal off the 24th ball he faced, the crowd’s energy gave way to listlessness. Some things didn’t change. A homemaker living in the suburbs still cooked him his favourite seafood dishes, and sent them to his hotel. He bowled with the effervescence of old, trapping Shillingford in front, and was never less than polite with the legion of well-wishers who wanted a piece of him in a city that wears its sentimentality on its sleeve. The atmosphere was no less charged in Mumbai, with fans incensed by the lack of tickets made available. But for 3,500 tickets that went up for sale online – predictably, the website crashed many times, with upwards of 20 million people trying their luck – everything else in the 32,000-capacity stadium was set aside for the clubs, gymkhanas and sponsors. The organisers had also acceded to Tendulkar’s request for 500 tickets. His family, which usually stayed away for fear of disrupting his focus, planned to attend, as did his coach, Ramakant Achrekar. His mother, Rajni, had never been to a stadium to watch him play any level of cricket. To ensure that she could watch his 664th and last international appearance for India, Tendulkar had requested the association for ramps to facilitate wheelchair access. In the days leading up to the game, his usually reticent relatives had opened up. Ajit Tendulkar, his older half-brother, spoke at length at an event. A long-haired version of Sachin – the resemblance is uncanny – Ajit had been both mentor and chief sounding board for three decades. And whereas the Maradona story featured its fair share of leeches and those that sought to cash in on his fame, Tendulkar was blessed when it came to family and managers. Right from his mother, who sold insurance and who commuted two hours or more every day for four years to see him when he lived with his uncle and aunt near Shivaji Park, to the half-siblings who did whatever they could to make sure his eyes stayed on the ball, Tendulkar has cherished a support system that allowed him to just go out and play. There were good men and women elsewhere too. Dwarkanath Sanzgiri, a Marathi journalist, had covered his first Ranji Trophy game. “I noted down every stroke,†he told me. “You just knew this boy would go places.†Unlike the buffoons of bluster on television and the keyboard warriors that take up so much of the current Indian media space, Sanzgiri, Pappu to his friends, is old school, a man steeped in the game’s traditions and techniques. I once sat next to him in the press box as he predicted how a Chinaman bowler would set up and dismiss a diffident left-hand batsman. It happened exactly as he had described. While Maradona dealt with a fair share of leeches and those that sought to cash in on his fame, Tendulkar was blessed when it came to family and managers. © BCCI The day Tendulkar came out to bat, to the sort of roar that some of us may never hear again, I could spot tears in Pappu’s eyes. At stumps, by which time he had eased to 38, we spoke excitedly about the freedom with which he had played, and the signature strokes that had been dusted off and exhibited one final time. “This is how a champion should go out,†he said. I nodded. That was the recurring theme the following day, even after he had cut Narsingh Deonarine to slip to be out for 74. Once the faithful had serenaded him off – the chant of ‘Sach-in-Sach-in’ was Indian cricket’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone†for a quarter century – they enthused about the way he had played, especially the straight drives off Tino Best and Shannon Gabriel. The next morning, at 11.47am, it was all over as a Mohammad Shami Yorker flattened middle stump. Tendulkar rushed in from fine leg and grabbed one of the stumps as a souvenir before his teammates lined up on either side of the pitch and asked him to lead them off. He looked down at the turf as he did so, wiping away a tear or two before shaking hands with the West Indies team and support staff on the boundary. The speech he gave later, with references to his father (“Every time I raised my bat, it was for himâ€), his wife (“The best partnership of my lifeâ€) and the fans (“The Sachin-Sachin chant will reverberate in my ears till the day I stop breathingâ€) reduced most in the stands to sobbing wrecks. In the press box, grey-haired eminences who had watched his first Test all those years earlier, closed their laptops and wept. Tendulkar, who was then chaired around the ground on his teammates’ shoulders, appeared to be the calmest person on the ground. Or at least he was till he broke away from the posse before disappearing from view forever. With every ticket-holder still watching red-eyed from the stands, he walked to the pitch. Some might think it just a strip of clay, dust, grass and roots. Others have no qualms about urinating on it. For Tendulkar, these rectangles of turf were canvases for his greatest work. They were also his houses of the holy. He bent down and touched the pitch reverently with both hands, before the same fingertips touched his forehead – a Hindu gesture that can best be equated with the sign of the cross. This time, you could see the tears streaming down his face as he walked away. A stadium cried with him. Not just for what it had lost, but for what it would never see again. A couple of days before the match had begun, Suresh Raina had spoken of how easily Tendulkar, everyone’s hero, managed to be one of the boys in the dressing room. Apparently, he drew the line only when it came to music. Not for him bhangra or Sean Paul. Before he walked out to bat, he would insist on some Kishore Kumar. The Bengali singer, something of a maverick in his day, died more than 26 years ago. After much coercion, Raina, who has a reputation as the team’s “voiceâ€, agreed to sing the first couple of lines of Tendulkar’s favourite song. “Lehron ki tarah yaadein [Memories like waves],†it begins. Tendulkar bent down and touched the pitch reverently with both hands, before touching his forehead with the same fingertips – a Hindu gesture best equated with making the sign of the cross. © BCCI When it comes to Tendulkar, most who love Indian cricket will find the memories as immense as Hawaii’s Big Pipe. From boy wonder to lone warrior, to “God†and then cherished memory… it was quite a journey. Highs and lows, twists and turns, false dawns and halcyon years. Those that put him on a pedestal, to the discomfiture of the atheists among us, seldom lost their faith. I have a friend who compared the emotions he felt around the final Test to those he had experienced when his father passed away. He broke down several times as he tried to explain it to me. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that there are thousands of others like him, whose cricket-watching lives were inextricably linked to the exploits of their Peter Pan. I didn’t cry that afternoon as Tendulkar said goodbye. For quite a few of us, it probably won’t sink in till India lose their second wicket at the Wanderers in December. Then, instead of that familiar anticipatory buzz, we will feel just emptiness. No.4 has left the building, and he isn’t coming back. He’s taken the best days of our lives with him. Link to comment
Sachin=GOD Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Sachin Bat of Honor :two_thumbs_up: Link to comment
Sachin=GOD Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 watch it LIVE now - http://ibnlive.in.com/livetv/ Link to comment
rkt.india Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 "Sachin Tendulkar is the best batsman ever and unlike all of you, I have seen Bradman play." who said this? Link to comment
Chandan Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 http://goo.gl/2cbv4k Of Tears, Words, Emotions and a Career.. Posted on November 17, 2013 The emotion of the final day of Sachin Tendulkar’s career . Captured here by Rohit Brijnath. From the Straits Times. Today was too much even for him. Today, on his last cricketing day at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, even he, the impassive man, left the field forever with a stump in one hand and a tear wiped with the other. He was not alone, for this day – for those in the stadium and beyond – resembled an emotional mass. Sport has rarely seen the like of it. Today, Sachin Tendulkar, who spent a life, he said, over 20 metres – the length of a cricket pitch – for 24 years, was retired. His white clothes to be packed. His bats to be mothballed. His competitive instinct to be buried. A long story, even if it went on longer than it might have, has concluded. There is for him no cricketing tomorrow. Always he was a man of runs, rarely of words, a private man locked in this most public of professions. He let others do the talking about him, but this day, for almost 24 minutes, he yanked down his well-constructed veil and spoke. In time, people will return to YouTube not just for his innings but for this speech. Tendulkar has rarely been so personal. In the stadium, an Englishman wept. Today, with the match won by India, he took the microphone, a floppy white cap on his head, a list in his hand and a shadow across his face. You could not see his eyes, but in the silent pauses between his words you could sense his struggle. His list was very Tendulkar – thorough and prepared. Nothing left to chance. He, the unforgotten, not forgetting those who made him. Alone he stood there under his last cricketing sun and said: “It’s getting a little bit difficult to talk but I will manage.†He started with his father, Ramesh, who passed away in 1999. A father whose picture he carried on tour; a father who he saluted with a look to the heavens after every special innings; a father who he described as “the most important person in my lifeâ€. At 11, his father told him to chase his dream, but advised “make sure you do not find short cutsâ€. Always his father told him to be a “nice human beingâ€. Tendulkar listened well and for all his 15,921 Test runs this has been his finest achievement. In the stands, the old, the young, together they wept. Today, a man who a nation has given constant thanks for, expressed his own gratitude. He wondered how his mother put up with such a “naughty childâ€. He spoke of his sister Savita, who gave him his first bat and “fasted†when he batted. He honoured his confidante, his brother Ajit, who even on Fridaynight was discussing his dismissal in the first innings. “We have lived this dream together, he spotted the spark in me,†he said. He paused. He swigged his water. There was more to say. Today he spoke of family, not the cricketing fraternity, but his blood, his wife, his kin. No champion is built alone nor forged in isolation. For the athlete to succeed, the family must live to the rhythm of his wake-up calls, must answer to his dietary whims, must adjust to his varying moods amid defeat and during injury. His wife, Anjali, a doctor, he said, stepped back from a career when they had children. “Thanks for bearing with all my fuss and all my frustrations, and all sorts of rubbish that I have spoken,†he said. His daughter, Sara, 16, and son Arjun, 14, went birthdays and sports days without a touring father in attendance. He looked to his children and said, “Thanks for your understandingâ€. India has given much, but it has taken from him, too. Behind her sunglasses, his wife wept. Today he hailed his coach Ramakant Achrekar. For 29 years, he said, “sir has never ever said ‘well played’ to me because he thought I would get complacent and I would stop working hardâ€. Then he smiled and said, “maybe he can push his luck and wish me now, well done on my careerâ€. Today the timing would be right, he said, speaking with an almost aching sadness, for there are “no more matches in my lifeâ€. In the press room, veteran writer and apprentice scribe, together they wept. Today, he praised his friends who would wake up at 3am when he was injured and take long drives with him through an empty city while reassuring him his career was not done. It was a startling and beautiful confession to the utter lonelieness of the sporting life. No, he told us, he was no impenetrable genius all the time, but this wounded man who needed help as he negotiated doubt. Today, he thanked the doctors who healed him and physios who restored him. Today, he acknowledged the cricketers he grew up with and those he played with and accepted “it is going to be difficult not to be part of the dressing roomâ€. In this room he was best understood, in this room he was allowed to be human and fail. In Singapore, alone in front of his TV, a friend wept. Today, Tendulkar gave thanks to India. To those who “fasted†for him, who had “flown in†from far for him, who supported him whether he scored “a zero or a hundred plusâ€. He looked and sounded a lucky man. So often he batted with such concentration one might presume he was deaf to a nation’s plea and prayer, yet he was listening. “Sachin, Sachinâ€, this chant he heard, this chant he would never forget. “Sachin, Sachinâ€, he said, would “reverberate in my ears till I stop breathingâ€. The crowd replied as only they could. They cried. “Sachin, Sachin.†Today, finally, his speech done, he did his lap of honour, then walked alone to the pitch, this 22-yard strip on which he became a myth, a man, a marvel. He stood on his piece of favourite earth, just him and the dust of his past. He touched the ground with both hands, he made a sign of respect, he left. Cricket had been left behind. Of course, he was weeping. Link to comment
Chandan Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 http://goo.gl/0vvStW The Mumbai that made Tendulkar As the cricketing world goes into a farewell frenzy, the city's humble maidans and school playgrounds that moulded Sachin Tendulkar into the cricketer he is today remain as simple and unpretentious as ever Sidharth Monga and Amol Karhadkar November 13, 2013 A young batsman bats in the nets at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, November 14, 2008 The Bombay school of batsmanship continues to thrive in Shivaji Park © Getty They're naming gymkhanas after him, they're minting gold coins with his face on it, politicians are falling over each other to honour him, jealous administrators are trying to pull the rug out from under each other's feet, but thankfully they have left alone the places that made Sachin Tendulkar, some of which were made by Tendulkar. More than any other cricketer of his era, Tendulkar has been about his fans. How nice it would have been had the politicians, businessmen and administrators running Indian cricket sent some of them to visit these places in the weeks leading up to his farewell. The unkempt maidans (fields), the unassuming school, the residential buildings, they all have something genuine to say about Tendulkar. Mumbai cricket even. Mumbai even. They don't stand out or lose their simplicity just because Tendulkar was there. In the week in which Tendulkar will end his international career, it is business as usual in the places where Tendulkar has spent most of his life outside international cricket. Shivaji Park in Dadar has kids playing even at 11am because the Diwali holidays are on. Different clubs, teams and individuals own plots here, as on other maidans, where they hold their nets sessions, training and games. Some parts of the ground are bald, some have long, untended grass, and some are well taken care of. There is no boundary rope, and no white-paint markings anywhere, though. The young Tendulkar's coach, Ramakant Achrekar, used to teach at the Kamat pitch. Not all the players here can point to it. It is not a patch of great interest. The Kamat pitch is close to the centre of the ground, leaning towards the northeast. Next to it, a serious match of cricket is on. The whites worn by the kids - no older than 15 - are immaculate, there is no sightscreen, the umpire moves to the other end at the end of the over, and the keeper wears a helmet. The field is pretty attacking, but there is no boundary here either. That's the Mumbai way: you don't think of hitting boundaries, you just bat. You have to run your runs, and are not allowed to hit in the air. "Hawet maaraycha nahee." These kids have picked up a lot of mannerisms from televised cricket, but the coaches here are making sure they play proper cricket, at least in their formative years. The Bombay school of batsmanship lives on, at least for the time being. There is something peaceful about Shivaji Park despite its being bang in the middle of busy mid-town Dadar. You get to watch innocent cricket, sit in the shade of the many trees, eat sing dana (peanuts) and wonder what others whiling away their time here are up to. Some of them are fast asleep on the benches. Ragini Desai, a teacher at Shardashram school, flanked by Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai Shardashram school teacher Ragini Desai flanked by a young Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar About three kilometres to the southeast is Shardashram, Tendulkar's school since 1984. Except you can't spot it without having gone past it two or three times. The Shardashram residential society opposite the school is more prominent. The school doesn't have a single photo of Tendulkar. The only signs that he - and others like Chandrakant Pandit, Pravin Amre, Vinod Kambli, Ajit Agarkar and more than 100 Ranji cricketers - studied here are the trophies in the cabinet in the principal's office. The board outside is small, the front of the building is rented out to a bank and a gym, and its simple colour scheme makes it look every bit like a school meant for, as principal Krishna Shirsat puts it, the "lower-middle and middle class". Shirsat used to teach maths and chemistry when Achrekar brought Tendulkar here in 1984. Cricket was the sole reason for his move from a school in his suburb, Bandra. Shardashram would even move its internal exams when they clashed with the cricket. And cricket was all Tendulkar did. "We used to win everything," says Shirsat. "Harris Shield, Giles Shield, Vinoo Mankad, Matunga Shield… And because we won everything, there would be a first round, second round, third round, and so on. So as soon as the cricket season started in July, you would rarely see Sachin in school." Shisrat would always be available to help Tendulkar, should he need help with maths and chemistry after school hours. When he was selected for Mumbai in 1988-89, the match clashed with a practical board exam, and Shirsat tried to use all his influence to make a special allowance for Tendulkar so he could take the exam after the match. About two years after Tendulkar enrolled, along came Ragini Desai, a physical training and Hindi teacher, a jovial woman with an expressive face and constantly moving eyes. Achrekar was Shardashram's cricket coach, she was the team's manager. She was present when Achrekar blasted Tendulkar and Kambli for batting on and on and putting on a 664-run partnership against a weak team. She knows of all the vada-pav (a street food) escapades of the two friends, and she has a valuable notebook titled "Cricket". When she went to matches with the team, Desai recorded brief scores in this notebook. She added clippings from newspapers next to the scores as the kids became more and more famous. She has preserved that notebook, and would love to show it to Tendulkar, but she hasn't ever had the opportunity to meet him after he left school. She hasn't tried to do so either. She would love to go to the Wankhede Stadium for Tendulkar's last match, but she is not complaining about how the chances of getting a ticket are minimal. A view from the corridors of the Sharadashram school, where Sachin Tendulkar studied This school-playground duo is complemented by the tag team of Sahitya Sahawas and MIG cricket club, further north, in Bandra East. Along the way you pass two other influences on Tendulkar's life: the Siddhivinayak temple where he sneaks in to pray late in the night, and St Michael's church in Mahim, where his wife, Anjali, lights a candle for him every week. Sahitya Sahawas literally translates to "literature living together". A building in Worli where Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vengsarkar and Ajit Wadekar lived is named Sportsfield. Sahitya Sahawas is the Sportsfield of Marathi literature. It is where Tendulkar lived as a child. The Tendulkars have neither sold their house here nor rented it out. The guard - stern but not rude - says it will take an application to the secretary of the building a day in advance for him to even point to the window of the Tendulkars. A stone's throw away, MIG is more open to intruders. A huge Tendulkar mural has come up only a couple of days ago on its main wall. So close to his childhood home, in a city with houses with no outdoor spaces to play sport in, MIG has been Tendulkar's personal laboratory. Over the years - 25 to be precise - MIG has fulfilled his odd wishes, says Aashish Patnakar, the club's secretary. Before going to Australia, Tendulkar would practise on half-pitches with rubber balls; he got that here. Before going to England he wanted to bat against wet balls on moist, grassy pitches; he got that here. When he was recuperating from a back injury, he wanted to jog here, but not during the day; they would open up for him at 4.30am. During the busy season when all grounds are occupied, Tendulkar can come to MIG and expect to get a proper facility during the lunch break, which is extended to one hour for his benefit. The Sahitya Sahawas colony in Bandra East, where Sachin Tendulkar lived as a child It is here that Tendulkar and his friend Atul Ranade used to do what technology has just started doing: simulate different bowling actions and release points on a bowling machine. Ranade was a master at doing impressions, and he would run in imitating different bowlers and help Tendulkar prepare for different actions. Even when Tendulkar moved to Bandra West - closer to the sea, posher - he would come here to practise. In Bandra West, Shirsat went to meet Tendulkar about five years ago at his residence in his new building, La Mer. "I told his PA I wanted to meet Sachin," Shirsat says. "His PA said I would have to wait for 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, he came and told me Sachin was too busy. I got angry, and asked the PA to tell Sachin that Shirsat sir has come, does he want to meet him? "And Sachin came running like a four-five-year-old kid comes running to his parents. And then we spoke for 15 minutes with him looking down. Even in school he would look down after saying something " Tendulkar has now given up that apartment for a bungalow of his own, not too far away, in the same suburb. A police van outside the bungalow is a permanent presence nowadays. He is also a member of parliament, although the other day he drove himself far into the north of the city, to the suburb of Kandivli, for a Mumbai Cricket Association function. The bungalow now looks like a fortress. When he was desperate to move in here, he got the workers to do double shifts. The noise in the night obviously disturbed the neighbours. The neighbours were each given a handwritten letter from Tendulkar, asking for their co-operation with the Tendulkars who needed to shift there as soon as possible. No one complained after that. It's back in south Mumbai that the boy became a man in the world of cricket, playing Kanga League matches in senior sides on wet pitches at Oval Maidan, Cross Maidan and Azad Maidan. His debut as an 11-year-old came for a side housed at Azad Maidan, which is equally well known for being a venue for strikes and agitations. Two days before Tendulkar starts his final Test, about three kilometres from here, fasts until death are being observed for 100% subsidy by the higher-secondary school committee, for railway admissions under notification 1/2007; and an indefinite protest - among others - for an 8% reservation for a particular community. Big photos of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Che Guevara abound. Many such protests would have been on when Tendulkar went into the tent of John Bright Club in 1984. These maidans are all heritage sites, so no club can build permanent structures here. The notices outside clearly ban any kind of commercialisation in the form of posters, banners or advertisements on the fences of the maidans; cooking, hawking, peddling et cetera are outlawed; water connections can only be used by proper authorities for "in general, only cricketing activities". Tendulkar's next club, SF Sassanian, is like John Bright in betraying no signs that Tendulkar was first seen by the cricketing world while playing in the Kanga League for them. All it has for a dressing room is six ramshackle benches and a few cupboards. All this, Tendulkar's world before he scored a century on first-class debut, hasn't changed much over the years. Everywhere you go, Shivaji Park, Oval Maidan, Azad Maidan, Cross Maidan, you can imagine that curly-haired boy squeaking away - he was quiet only while teachers were around, every teacher of his says - from net to net, from maidan to maidan riding pillion on Achrekar's scooter, having fun with not a bother in the world, eating vada-pavs, going to school once in a while. You can find a bit of Tendulkar all over Mumbai. And you don't need plaques, commemorative coins or extravagant felicitations to establish that bond. Link to comment
Sachin=GOD Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 THE TENDULKAR PRISM Hassan Cheema on how Pakistanis viewed themselves through the failures and successes of India’s greatest batsman Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from limited-overs cricket in December 2012 brought them out in full force. By the time he said goodbye to Test cricket, nearly a year later, they were tired and outnumbered, but clung desperately to their self-created bubble. Beyond the plethora of heartfelt eulogies was a world – mostly confined to the privacy of living rooms and online message boards – where Tendulkar wasn’t the God worshipped by a billion. Here, where contrarians and trolls live, he was far from the match-winner he was made out to be. Inevitably, this universe consisted overwhelmingly of Pakistanis. For a generation of them, Tendulkar’s career wasn’t just the story of arguably the greatest batsman of his era, and unarguably the biggest star in modern cricket, but the story of the prism through which Pakistanis saw their place in the world – though they’d be loathe to admit it. It seems odd to argue that a foreign sportsman could have such a far-reaching influence on a country’s youth, but the view that Pakistanis had of India – and by extension of Tendulkar – is unique. Their attitude towards the Indian team was how Pakistanis proved they were Pakistani, as the post-Zia nation over the last three decades went from isolation, and in search of recognition, to a place the world knows about – not necessarily for the right reasons. It’s no coincidence that at the time the rest of the cricketing firmament prostrated before Tendulkar, a major Pakistani news channel ran a segment about how Javed Miandad, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf were each his equal. The rejection of the Hindu – and by definition of India – was how you became Pakistani. From Pakistan’s first tour in 1952-53, when Test captain Abdul Hafeez Kardar took his team only to “monuments and museums that reflected Muslim glories in India, while ignoring the rest” – as described in Shashi Tharoor’s Shadows Across the Playing Fields – to their acceptance of Imran Khan’s opinion that Inzamam-ul-Haq was a better player of pace than Tendulkar, this view of India as the other is hardly restricted to cricket. Ayub Khan (the President of Pakistan 1958 to 1969) was a Sandhurst-trained army officer who said a Muslim soldier was equal to ten Hindu soldiers. He worried about how much of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was under “Hindu culture and influence.” Pakistani academic Aasim Sajjad Akhtar believes the country’s ideology “is an anti-Indian ideology. It’s a negation, rather than something that stands up on its own.” Defined by what one is not, rather than what one is. I grew up in the 1990s, when everyone, barring elite Pakistanis, had access to only one source of news (beyond the dailies): the 9pm TV bulletin Khabarnama. Every day it began with the headlines, followed by the latest from around the country. Ten minutes in, we had the Kashmir update – this was our war, but it wasn’t being fought by us or in our cities (unlike the wars in the 2000s, which aren’t our wars – supposedly – but are being fought by us, in our streets). Popular Urdu literature for children at the time focused on the constant state of war Pakistan found themselves in – Afghanistan in the ’80s, Kashmir in the ’90s, and the whole world in the 2000s, if you read author Ishtiaq Ahmed. The only thing the children of the ’90s, regardless of class and economics, could agree on was that Pakistan was in danger and India was the enemy. It is in this context that one has to consider Pakistan’s view of Tendulkar. Omar Kureishi, the late Pakistani journalist, once said the only two things that could unite his country were war and cricket – incidentally the only two areas in which Pakistan was directly pitted against its neighbour. For all the mistrust and animosity of India cultivated in us, there were no avenues to release it. The only interaction a Pakistani had then with anything Indian was cricket or Bollywood. The latter was overwhelmingly popular and could never be shunned by the majority; it was, and still is, a guilty pleasure. Uncles and aunties may complain all day about India’s soft power eroding Pakistani culture, and yet, the same uncles and aunties watch every Shah Rukh Khan film that hits the theatres. Thus, the cricket team was how one became Pakistani. As the world changed, the opinions shifted but never the ideologies – until 2004, when India toured Pakistan for the Friendship Series and we were struck by the realisation that those two decades of fostering hostility may have been for naught. History seemed irrelevant during that 40-day tour and India’s Lakshmipathy Balaji became an ironic icon. But I digress. The Indian cricket team of the ’90s wasn’t even worthy of our revulsion; condescension was more apt. Ayub Khan may have been wrong about the inequality of soldiers but the inequality of the cricketers was obvious. From Javed Miandad hitting the six at Sharjah in 1986 until the 2003 World Cup, Pakistan’s ODI record against India read 44 wins and 21 losses – this is what we saw growing up. Pakistan were just better at cricket than India – and we assumed this had always been so. It was through this barometer that Tendulkar was judged – he was the leader of a group of wannabes and never-will-bes and, therefore, not a match-winner. As if to lend credence to this hypothesis, Tendulkar didn’t exactly prove us wrong when India played Pakistan. Until that 2003 World Cup, he had scored just two centuries in 41 ODI innings against Pakistan – both in the space of a fortnight in 1996, hence lessening their impact, and one of them in a losing cause. He averaged in the mid-30s. Even more significant for the casual Pakistani fan was that both those hundreds came in the first innings of day games, a time when viewership is much lower than usual. Pakistanis had a simple formula by which they judged India: batting second in day/night matches. This scenario saw Pakistan play to their strength and viewership was at its maximum as well (add Friday in Sharjah to the picture and it would be the most stereotypical of Pakistan-India face-offs in the ’90s). It was here that Tendulkar struggled most. During this phase, he averaged under 30 in 21 innings – batting second against Pakistan – with no hundreds. India won only seven of these 21 matches, with Tendulkar scoring just three fifties. His role in this narrative served only to reinforce biases: India were hopeless at chasing and Tendulkar was not a match-winner. By comparison, his greatest contemporary Brian Lara punished Pakistan like few others. Lara averaged over 50 batting second, and over 70 in games West Indies won – they won more games than they lost against Pakistan during this time. To a Pakistani, the Lara-Tendulkar debate was never a debate. But why judge Tendulkar only on his record against Pakistan? For a parallel to this story, you have to look no further than Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s career (until 2012). During the 2006 football World Cup, the English-based Northern Irish manager Martin O’Neill called him the most overrated player in the world and this was accepted as the establishment line. Zlatan dominated the Italian game like few before him, yet the English believed he was far from world class because he never did it against them; a brace against Arsenal for Barcelona did not count, nor did winners in the Milan derby or the El Clásico have any affect. But then he scored four goals in 90 minutes against England (including that overhead kick) in 2012 and the English begrudgingly acknowledged his genius. It was this line of thinking that Pakistani fans indulged in too. Our bowling attack was the best in the world – until you did it against them you weren’t worthy. The decade saw Pakistan boast probably the most complete generation of bowlers a country has ever had. Thus while the attitude smacked of superiority, unlike that of English football fans, it felt well-earned. But it’s not merely what he did, but who he was, that alienated Pakistanis. Social conditioning had taught us that the way to live your life was to go for what you believed you deserved rather than waiting for it to come to you. Our cricketers, like our image of Pakistan, were macho; they were in-your-face, aggressive and only borderline legal. Tendulkar, on the contrary, was cherubic, slightly effeminate (in voice) and squeaky clean. While our players were standing in Justice Qayyum’s court to answer allegations of match-fixing, everyone in India was sure Tendulkar would never do such a thing. And it is no surprise that Pakistanis never warmed to Tendulkar. The two great heroes of the post-Wasim generation were Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Akhtar. They were ephemeral, inconsistent, unorthodox and over the top. He was not. Yet Tendulkar was much more than a cricketer. He became the face of post-liberalisation India – the rise of the country’s middle class coinciding with his own. In cricket writer Ayaz Memon’s words, “Tendulkar became a metaphor of what is now called the new India… where achievement, and reward, and fate all go hand in hand.” He also became the cornerstone of India’s growth as a cricketing power – on and off the field. Lest we forget, Australia played only three series against India between 1981 and 1996 (and only one of them in India), while England visited India once between 1985 and 2000. The turn of the century saw an extraordinary rise in these match-ups, not only because India were now the cash cow, but because the Indian team with its newfound confidence – led by Tendulkar – had earned the respect of the cricketing world, except Pakistan perhaps. His debut series, the seventh between Pakistan and India in 11 years, was followed by a nine-year hiatus. At the peak of his career, India played only one Test series against Pakistan, and that series crystallised how Pakistanis saw him. I refer, of course, to the three-Test series in 1999 (Pakistanis regard the first Test of the Asian Test Championship in February 1999 as the third of the series against India since it came immediately after the Kolkata and Chennai Tests earlier in the year – taking that result into account means Pakistan won the series 2-1 rather than drawing it 1-1). This series featured one of Tendulkar’s greatest Test innings. A fourth-innings masterpiece on a fifth-day pitch while batting with the lower order against Wasim, Waqar and Saqlain – that was how the world saw it. But across the border it was Tendulkar being the gallant batsman he always was and failing to win the match as he always did. The fact that this was his only 30-plus score in six innings of the series merely confirmed the bias: when India won Tendulkar didn’t play a part; India lost despite what he could offer. *** Until the late 1990s, PTV (Pakistan Television), ruled the roost – except for those who could afford a satellite dish, or an array of similar but cheaper options which were almost always exclusive to Karachi. But the turn of the millennium saw the rise of cable television, providing a whole host of Indian channels. Within five years we went from watching whatever was available on one channel to complaining about not having anything to watch on 80. Among them were a pair of Indian sports networks which brought us the other perspective on Tendulkar and the Indian team. It didn’t take long for the Pakistani attitude towards India to become the same as the Irish attitude towards the English. The average Irishman can support any English football club he likes, but their national team is to be reviled – a dislike fuelled by the irritation with the one-eyed, jingoistic and hypocritical English media. Much the same happened in Pakistan. Most of us never watched Tendulkar at his peak since those matches were never broadcast to the overwhelming majority of the country. We did not get to watch Tendulkar take apart Warne during the 1997-98 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and Operation Desert Storm soon after was a performance most Pakistanis only read about. In Indian Cricket 2000, Raja Mukherjee described Tendulkar as someone who was “No Indian in his method.” He goes on to say, “His batsmanship was of the West Indian mould. Never before did an Indian treat the ball as he did. His method was aggression, his weapon, power. The niceties of grace and classic conventional technique were not for this valiant kid of the Nineties generation. He was born in independent India… he knew not the uncertainties, nor the enforced servility of the pre-independence era. He was born free, to chart his own course.” This was the Tendulkar that Pakistanis missed. All they saw was a man who struggled against one of the great attacks in limited-overs history, and then the run-machine he became in the second half of his career. But as the cablewalas multiplied, Pakistanis became acquainted with the Indian perception of Tendulkar. Now, you could watch Indian matches, and you did: India’s failure was a victory in itself, and the greatest possible introduction to Schadenfreude. Every time Pakistan beat India, it tasted sweeter. Between the Sharjah series win in 1998 and the tri-nation series victory in 2008, India played 21 finals, of which they won one. One! Tendulkar averaged 26. Your argument, previously based on just matches against Pakistan, only gained strength as you watched Tendulkar fail in crucial games. Except, right in the middle of this decade, came Centurion – the day most Indians would think Tendulkar settled the debate. But his performance was easily tossed aside as an aberration, against an ageing team that had been in inexorable decline for three years. More than Tendulkar, it was Sehwag and his generation who frightened Pakistan. Tendulkar was just the same as he had been for the previous decade – to be respected and admired, but not feared. Which explains why, even after Centurion, the Pakistani view of Tendulkar hardly changed. Instead, the anomalies in his record became more important than the bigger picture. From that innings in 2003 to Mohali in 2011, Tendulkar had seven 50-plus scores against Pakistan – only two of those came in wins. He only scored one 100 in 11 Tests against Pakistan after 1999. Pakistanis have grown up with the idea that if a batsman scores a hundred the team was guaranteed a win. Tendulkar’s four great Pakistani contemporaries – Saeed Anwar, Inzamam, Yousuf and Younis – combined to score 51 ODI 100s, only seven of which resulted in losses. Three of Tendulkar’s five ODI 100s against Pakistan were in a losing cause. Of course, the one-eyed ignored the fact that Pakistan always had a better bowling attack than India did. Flip that stat to see the bigger picture and you realise that the four great Pakistanis combined to score two more ODI hundreds than Tendulkar did on his own. But for the non-believers, even this wouldn’t change their minds. But as Tendulkar retired, those biases disappeared, at least on the surface. Beyond a couple of exceptions, the reaction to his retirement in Pakistan was overwhelmingly positive, almost sycophantic. It made sense too. Pakistan is no longer the country it was in the ’90s. No longer is it a paranoid local miscreant, some of whose citizens feel victimised: it is now a paranoid worldwide miscreant, all of whose citizens feel victimised. Since 9/11, and the beginning of the Afghan war, the anger is reserved for the United States rather than India. For the 2013 national elections, the two most popular centre-right parties in Pakistan called for peace and love towards India – a fact that went unnoticed outside war-mongering circles because of how small a deal it was. It is no surprise that, despite the attacks in Mumbai, the past 12 years have been a relatively peaceful era in the countries’ histories. The media and technology boom may have provided platforms for hate-mongers on both sides, but it has also ensured a level of interaction that never existed before. Perhaps peace is impossible, but coexistence seems achievable. These developments may have resulted in the Tendulkar of 2013 being respected far more than the Tendulkar of 1998 – though he was now a lesser player. In the end, he played for so long that he was still around by the time the Pakistani attitude towards India changed – well, almost. There can be no greater proof of Tendulkar’s longevity and greatness than that. http://www.thenightwatchman.net/news/editors-choice-2 Link to comment
Sachin=GOD Posted July 12, 2014 Share Posted July 12, 2014 Sachin Tendulkar: The god of small things Aakash Chopra | 11 July 2014 I was only 12 when Sachin Tendulkar first represented India and left a nation instantly mesmerised. I remember watching him dance down the track to hit Abdul Qadir for three towering sixes, and must have tried to do the same innumerable times, if only in my imagination. While I was still learning how to stand properly at the crease, Tendulkar was earning standing ovations around the globe; while I was still learning how to use my feet to get to the pitch of the ball, Tendulkar was taking giant strides. The more I played the game, the more I admired him, for it was only through playing that one truly understood the scale of what he was doing. By the end of the 1990s, it was as if he had ceased to be just a player, and now symbolised excellence. It was around this time that I started nurturing the dream of playing for India myself. And yet playing for India and playing alongside Tendulkar seemed two separate things. Playing for India would mean countless hours of toil, something I was prepared for. But nothing had prepared me for sitting in the dressing-room next to my idol. I was a bundle of nerves when I walked into the conference hall of Ahmedabad’s plush Taj hotel for my first India team meeting in October 2003. I had attended many team meetings before, but had little idea of how this one would unfold – and even less idea of how I would react to my first encounter with Tendulkar. Fifteen minutes in, I worried our chat wouldn’t go beyond the customary exchange of greetings: words were failing me already. Our coach, John Wright, divided the team into batsmen and bowlers to discuss the forthcoming Test against New Zealand. I’m glad he did, for that’s when Tendulkar and I were introduced properly. I had played a couple of warm-up games against the tourists, so questions were thrown in my direction about how their bowlers were shaping up. To my utter surprise and pleasure, Tendulkar was the most inquisitive. How was Daryl Tuffey bowling? Had Daniel Vettori bowled his arm-ball? He wanted to know everything. He had played these bowlers many times – and successfully. What need was there for a batsman of his capability to ask such questions of a rookie like me? But he did. And the reason became clear. He wanted to allow me to break the ice, to interact with him, to know him better. I suspect he realised that, as with most Indian debutants, I was overawed, and that this wasn’t likely to change unless he made a special effort. I can’t thank him enough for the gesture. A couple of days later, confident from our last interaction, I called his room seeking an audience. Once again, he was happy to oblige. Until then, I’d been to the hotel rooms of many senior and junior cricketers, and had found most of them like any boy’s room, strewn with dirty laundry, shoes, cricket gear, laptop and iPod. Tendulkar’s was different: meticulous and organised, like his batting. Gods’ idols were on the bedside table, bats neatly arranged in one corner, bed linen without any creases, dirty linen nowhere. He ordered a cup of coffee for us both, and chatted freely, as if we’d known each other for years. I asked him about his preparation and game plans, and he began to share details. What I saw of Tendulkar in the days that followed left an indelible mark. He was always first to the team bus, because he didn’t like rushing. He would plan most of his innings by making mental notes for the bowlers he was likely to face – a habit that meant he wouldn’t sleep properly for a fortnight before India’s game against Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup. It was during our chat that I realised preparation for every battle was as crucial to success at the top as natural ability. Knowing the opposition is important, but so is knowing your own game. Those 40 minutes I spent with him changed the way I looked at Tendulkar – the player and the man – for ever. We batted first in the Test, and I made 42. As I walked back to the pavilion, the stadium erupted. Almost everyone in the stands was on their feet. So this was what it was like to play for your country! I was disappointed to have missed a fifty, but that feeling evaporated as I soaked up the ovation. The noise continued even after I was seated in the dressing-room – which was when I realised, to my embarrassment, that the applause might not have been for me. Needless to say, it had been for the man walking out to bat, not the man walking into the pavilion. Only then did I begin to wonder what it must be like to be Sachin Tendulkar, carrying the burden of so many hopes. And yet he behaved with the utmost humility. In that moment, my respect for him rose several notches. The real measure of the man lay in the fact that even the most senior members of the team showered him with respect. “I want to protect him. Tendulkar must not come out to bat to play a few balls in the fading light against the raging Aussies – he is our best hope to win the game.” Those words, spoken by another great man, Rahul Dravid, to Nayan Mongia during the First Test at Mumbai during the famous 2000-01 series, still ring in my ears. The beauty of the relationship between Tendulkar and the other senior players was their mutual respect; no one behaved like a superstar. All of them encouraged an atmosphere of comfort, in which even a junior could happily pull a prank. As I spent more time in the dressing-room, I gained a closer look at Tendulkar’s quest for excellence. Every net session had a purpose, leading to a discussion about what he was doing right or wrong. And he was quite happy getting feedback from the newcomers, including me. Each time he asked me something, I would remind him that it should be the other way around. But he would have none of it, constantly prodding me for my view. Sachin would ask me about his stance, head position, backlift and downswing. And it wasn’t just me: he would ask the net bowlers whether they could see him stepping out, or premeditating his strokes. Greatness isn’t just what you know, but what you don’t – and the effort you make to bridge that gap. Tendulkar mastered that art. His gift was to appear in control. And that was so different from how I, or my colleagues, functioned. He didn’t always need to score a truckload of runs to spread calm. Sometimes, he just needed to do what felt beyond the rest of us, and put bat to ball. Here was a man who not only timed his moves so well that he looked programmed by computer but, with a twirl of the bat, made the ball kiss the sweet spot. Criticism is inevitable, and so it was for him. If you’ve spent your life in the middle, with every move scanned by the peering eyes of a billion people, you are bound to be judged. But he endured all censure without resentment. It was as if greatness went hand in hand with humility. That may have been the greatest lesson of all. http://www.wisdenindia.com/cricket-article/sachin-tendulkar-god-small/115942 Link to comment
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