Number one headline....flyer....Vinod Kambli rises from obscurity to wax eloquent on his school chum......the media is abuzz . All thanks to Sachin Tendulkar's emphatic denial of rumours that he's set to retire from one-day internationals.
But who started these rumours in the first place? Media reports quoted 'sources close to Tendulkar', who apparently said 'he was inclined to announce his retirement on this tour of England but had been persuaded by friends to do so at home.' Which is, after the ODIs at home later in the year after Australia and Pakistan.
Build up hype about impending retirement, follow it up with top-class performances and then make the media ask Why? And respond to the media oops public with a denial. Fantastic PR exercise, whether by accident or design.
If the same Tendulkar, looking world-weary and in atrocious form as India sunk to dismal depths in the World Cup had called time to ODIs right after, the public would not have batted an eyelid.
It's been fantastic to watch him fire away on all cylinders in England, but for how long? In the later stages of his Oval masterpiece, Tendulkar was hobbling. And one attempted pull shot left him distressed. As it is, he's been walking wounded the past few years, crippled by injury after injury, along the way making us aware of the intricacies of a tennis elbow.
As the master nears twilight, the ideal way to prolong his career is to pick and choose his appearances for India, especially in ODIs. And Tendulkar has achieved everything possible in the one-day game, both in terms of entertaining the public and statistics.
Should Sachin choose to play to the gallery with more and more ODIs or look seriously at erasing the one big blot on his career - his inability to be a match-winner in a test match since the 1990s. Will we ever see again a commanding Sachin display in a test match propelling the team to victory, like his annihilation of Shane Warne in Chennai in 1998?
Tendulkar may have got his timing right now, but will he time his eventual retirement to perfection? Memories are savoured better, if a sporting icon calls it quits when fans ask `why?' and not when they ask `why not?'
Sachin has a choice....quit like Sunil Gavaskar when the going is good or wait till forced to quit...like Kapil Dev who was booed to retirement after being whacked all over, that too in Faridabad in home state Haryana.
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4 comments:
he came close to making a match-winning innings in 2003-04 remember with THAT double hundred in Sydney! Had Kumble and co. been able to prise out Steve Waugh and co earlier, who knows...
but good point about him not having made match-winning knocks in tests since the 90s...
Sydney test did see Tendulkar thrive but remember India was already looking good when he entered, with the openers having added 123 runs. And he had support every inch of the way with Laxman too scoring a big hundred. Sydney witnessed Tendulkar the run-accumulator and a cog in the wheel, not the matchwinning genius of Chennai 1998.
I am in no way downgrading the double hundred, just making the point it pales in comparison to dominating efforts of the 1990s, be it match-winning or even holding-the-innings-together knocks.
Will we ever get to see an epic knock from him similar to what he did in the 2000 Ranji Trophy semifinal against Tamil Nadu? Chasing TN's 485 for a first innings lead, Mumbai got to 490 thanks to Sachin's monumental 233 not out, after tense partnerships with tailenders.
His deeds are humungous, but I wish I could see him propelling India to victory in a test match with such a never-say-die-knock. Brian Lara did that twice against Steve Waugh's Australia in 1999.
There is not a single Sachin century in Wisden's (by no means authoritative) top 100 list of best individual innings in Tests. Lara's there at 2 and 10. That said, I think it was a major error on Wisden's part to omit Sachin's Chennai 155*
Well said. Also, we shouldn't forget the role L. Shiva played in that entertaining innings. And, the Test before that one in Chennai, where Sachin hurt his back, was equally enjoyable till Nayan Mongia did his bit...wasn't it! Wonder if Sachin ever spoke with Mongia after that!
a match-winning innings in my definition doesn't need to be a fighting, back to the wall kind of knock always. It is of course much better if the context provides drama. But if India had won the Sydney test, tendulkar's knock would have been defined as match-winning. and I believe that it was one of his greatest knocks even there was no slap dash. cutting out off-side driving shots almost entirely and making that many runs was a meditation in not just cricket, i'm sure you will agree.
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