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sachin-tendulkar
Well played India
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 25 Comments »
Three cheers to India for winning a superb Test. That it took place at all was a surprise. That Sachin Tendulkar hit the winning runs, bringing up his hundred in the process, was a script not even his mother could have written. It was a bizarrely pristine and classic manner in which to end a Test whose preparations were blighted not by rain, or poor form, or injuries, but by terror.
There will be some sickly and romantic notions in the coming days that this win has shoved it up the terrorists. That India have won and the terrorists have lost. And it’s true that without the Mumbai terrorist strikes, we wouldn’t be feeling like we are at the moment. England’s supporters can be proud of a team who, for three-and-a-half days, dominated a Test on the subcontinent. India’s are ecstatic for two brilliant performances which propelled an unlikely win. Even removing the context of Mumbai, India’s win today was hugely significant.
Impressive for its boldness, but what struck me (I’ve only seen highlights so don’t shout me down) is how un-Indian their approach was. India have occasionally produced bullet wins out of nowhere before tripping up. Yet this win had a composure and belief about it. Granted, Virender Sehwag’s Gilchristian attack on the fourth day provided much of the belief (and vital runs), and who else would you rather have anchor a fifth-day chase than Tendulkar? But those two huge figures aside, India rose to the occasion when it mattered and believed they could win more than England.
One word of warning: don’t let’s compare India to Australia. It’ll happen – let’s face it, India is going to be drunk on this for days on end – but it would be premature to suggest they are the new No.1, however much their fans demand it be true. They’re definitely on the right track though.
So too, I think, are England. India is the hardest place to tour and they dominated much of the Test when nobody expected them to. That they lost it in the last day-and-a-half nevertheless suggests Kevin Pietersen will be as sleepless in Mohali as he has reportedly been in Chennai.
Indian fans, by all means praise your team to the hilt … but non-Indian fans, do also wade in. Anyone from South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan or wherever else, post your thoughts below.
25 Comments »What a brilliant game
By Alex Try 2 years ago, mid-December, 2 Comments »
Watching Sachin Tendulkar score a hundred in front of 40,000 adoring fans takes away some of the pain of losing. There is time enough in the future to dwell on missed opportunities and Monty’s lackluster bowling effort. I was just a pleasure to watch a brilliant game.
The Chennai crowd was as much a part of the experience as anything that happened on the field. When India are batting, the most conservative old man is transformed into a fifteen-year-old. He shouts and cheers and dances for every run they score. When Tendulkar walks into bat the crowds flock. Even when he’s fielding, when he touches the ball a roar erupts like a wicket has fallen.
The highlight came last evening while Sehwag was hitting fours and sixes at will. After every boundary the two women sat behind me, both clad head to toe in black chadors and hijabs, starting jumping up and down on their seats and blowing horns in my ear. It was fantastic. The atmosphere at a cricket match in India is unique to anything I have ever experienced. Even as England are getting thrashed you can’t help looking around you and grinning like a mad-man.
Strauss’s twin hundreds, Swann’s double wicket opening over, Flintoff’s confrontation with Yuvraj, Sehwag’s blitz and a Tendulkar century to win the game! Its such a cliché, but cricket really is the winner. Onwards to Mohali, and we will see if England can pick up the pieces.
Alex Try is in India blogging England’s tour for The Corridor
2 Comments »Sick as a pig; fêted like a king
By Alex Try 2 years ago, at the end of November, No Comments; be the first!
Leaning, puking out of the iron barred window of an Indian train is not unusual. Being greeted like a celebrity outside a cricket stadium is.
Recovering from a 20-hour train journey from Chennai to Cuttack (spent suffering the effects of food poisoning) I set out to buy my ticket for the 5th ODI. The reception afforded me by the hundreds of people waiting to buy tickets at the Barabati stadium was surreal, therapeutic and extremely fun.
While the match in Bangalore was beginning- with Virender Sehwag taking the attack to England’s bowlers as he has done so often this series- hundreds of fans waited patiently in searing heat to buy tickets. Their boredom was lifted by the sight of my girlfriend and I: jeers and cheers rang out from whoever we passed. But this was nothing to what followed.
Our arrival outside the stadium brought a hoard of television cameras with presenters thrusting microphones at us and requesting interviews. Either they thought I was someone important, or as I suspect, English cricket fans in rural east India are a rarity at best. Searching questions were asked: what did I think of England’s performance so far? (Crap) and who was my favourite England player? (Michael Vaughan: even though he wasn’t playing).
Travelling with a woman in India is well advised; my girlfriend used the ladies’ queue and bought us two tickets within 20 minutes, rather than the hours I would have had to wait otherwise. We then posed with our tickets, whilst more cameras and crew surrounded us as well as a crowd of 50 or so onlookers taking pictures on their mobile phones.
These further interviews was more searching than previous ones:
Interviewer: “How are you exactly feeling at this moment?”
Me: “Very good- I am very pleased to be here in Cuttack, and I am looking forward to the match on Wednesday.”
Interviewer: “And who is your favourite Indian player?”
Me: “Sachin”
Enormous cheers rang out behind me.
This is the upside of the BCCI’s stadium rotation policy. This will probably be the only opportunity fans in Cuttack will have to watch their hero’s in the flesh all year. If the reception given to me is anything to go by, they are determined to make the most of it.
Barring another bout of Gandhi’s Revenge, Alex Try will be blogging England’s tour of India for The Corridor
No Comments »Tendulkar reaches his destiny
By Will 2 years ago, mid-October, 8 Comments »
I’ve been mulling over Sachin Tendulkar’s achievements on and off for a while. Athers has a fine piece in today’s Times which has jogged my memory:
Tendulkar’s genius is how lightly he has carried this last burden. Since his teenage years he has been public property: every innings, every statement, every movement scrutinised. It was both his good fortune and his curse to play at a time when India emerged as an economic powerhouse, looking for heroes on the world stage. Rupees have flowed into his bank account but he has not been able to enjoy the fruits of his labours. He must drive his Ferrari at night to avoid attention, lives in a security compound and enjoys the relative anonymity that spending time in London and America brings.
Success brings adulation. We know that. But the acclaim Tendulkar has attracted over his career says as much about India as it does his own unique sporting ability. The raucous, almost hysterical reaction of his fans give evidence of a country who were (and probably still are) in desperate need for iconic heroes and role models. He was an entire nation’s representative on the world stage, which could explain why cricket is so revered in India. Only in the last decade has their economy begun to explode; cricket has been India’s emotional outlet for years, but also one of the few areas in which they felt on level terms with the world’s powerhouses. And Tendulkar is their cheerleader in chief, a beacon for hope and global respect.
As Atherton says, Tendulkar’s genius lies in his ability to succeed under the greatest pressure any sportsman has had to bear.
8 Comments »SRT and his records
By Alex Try 2 years ago, mid-October, No Comments; be the first!
As Sachin Tendulkar glided the first ball after tea down to third man in Mohali today, the euphonious sound of his bat hitting the ball was drowned out by momentous roar from the crowd. Tendulkar, who made his debut as a mere 16-year-old child against Pakistan in 1989, is now the leading run-scorer in the history of the game. The shot and the record entirely justified the sobriquet: “little master”.
I was younger than Tendulkar was on his debut when I first saw him play. South Africa were hosting India at the Wanderers in a One Day International in 2001 and my family’s recent acquisition of Sky Sports meant a new world of international cricket was now open to me. I spent more than a week eagerly anticipating it.
On the morning of the match I slumped in front of my food at breakfast with my head resting on the table. I recall making guttural sounds as mother came to fuss over me to ask what was wrong. I told her I had stomach-ache and could not go to school. My acting skills were superlative. I was soon laid on the sofa with a heavy blanket over me, and the yellow bucket by my side that always seemed to accompany illness in the family.
Tendulkar had always evoked something sublime and mysterious in my young mind. I had heard his name discussed endlessly in newspapers and on television. I knew of his batting feats and how he always delivered for India. Some said he was the greatest player of his generation. But I had never seen him play. I did not even know what he looked like. Instead of constructing an image of him in my head, my imagination was rife with impossible shots and huge scores.
We all know the line that when Tendulkar walks out to the middle he carries the hopes of a billion people on his shoulders. “Cricket is my religion and Tendulkar is my God” his fans cry. In the Bulling that day he also had a 14-year-old English boy for company as well.
I actually remember little about the game itself – the expectation was everything. Tendulkar and Ganguly opened for India and both scored hundreds. The only shots I recall are Ganguly marauding down the wicket to dispatch innumerable balls over long-on for six. I also remember Tendulkar got out the ball after his century, while I was still high on adrenaline. It seemed as if he had scored those runs just for me. This would have felt the same whether I was 14 or 41. I had invested so much expectation into this innings that when he delivered it was almost personal. It didn’t even matter that India went on to lose the match: Tendulkar was a hero. This is my insight into the Indian cricket fans Tendulkar-cult.
Much can be made of Tendulkar the phenomena. The Marxist Mike Marquese has argued the Tendulkar cult in India is about more than cricket: “unwittingly and unwillingly, he has found himself at the epicenter of a rapidly evolving popular culture shaped by the intertwined growth of a consumerist middle class and an increasingly aggressive form of national identity.”
Cricket is certainly a central articulation of Indian identity, but this analysis is so far removed from his sublime stroke-play that it completely bypasses why Tendulkar is worthy of celebration in the first place. Tendulkar is not a historical construct: he is a glorious batsman.
When you watch Tendulkar bat you invest an expectation in his performance like no other. When the ball is delivered to him your knee bends and your foot inches forward in anticipation of classical drive or a stinging cut-shot. If he edges a ball through the slips, your heart-races as if it is you yourself that has just received a let-off.
The writer Soumya Bhattacharya captures the essence of the Tendulkar-cult. He says he was the first hero he ever had who was younger than he was. Hero’s are supposed to die with your youth, but Tendulkar’s batting has the power to make you feel young again. Record breaking feats aside: this is his marker of greatness.
No Comments »‘I want to be England’s Tendulkar’
By Will 3 years ago, at the end of August, 1 Comment »
Not my words, but those of Ravi Bopara, the Essex and England batsman (oh alright: he’s an allrounder. Just). My miniature magazine colleague, Daniel Brigham, did an excellent interview with the future Tendulkar in a recent issue of The Wisden Cricketer, and Bopara’s claims are nothing if not ambitious.
“Sachin’s my ultimate hero. He’s the one who I learnt all my batting off, just watching him constantly. I always tried to copy his batting and put it in my own style. I want to be a top-four Test batter – similar to Tendulkar. I don’t think anyone’s going to score as many runs as him but I want to have a career close to his – do everything he did but do it for England.”
He’s got drive, I’ll give him that. But has he got Tendulkar’s drive? Patrick Kidd, who has championed Bopara’s talents since the lad was about 10, will hopefully tell us more…
1 Comment »Use the force, Luke
By Ian 3 years ago, at the start of August, 1 Comment »
I was a little sceptical about Luke Wright’s succession to the England 20-20 squad on the basis that he scored the most runs in this year’s campaign, not least because Chris Schofield was picked for taking the most wickets. Graeme Swann must be uber-gutted! But while I am delighted the selectors have decided to go with a specialist squad, I had developed the opinion that Wright was just a slogger-got-lucky.
Not for the first time, I was dead wrong. His 60-ball hundred last night for Sussex against Gloucestershire was stunning. While there was the odd smear and hoik, almost every shot was orthodox, including a dreamy cover drive and on drive, all hit with terrible power and timing. Gloucestershire are not the very worst of attacks – I’m sure Wright will meet some worse bowlers at the 20-20 World Cup – but he made them look inept. Even Michael Atherton was purring by the end, shifting his stance from, “if you’re good enough for international 50 over cricket, you’re good enough for 20-20†to “if this lad’s good enough for 20-20, he should be good enough for 50 overs too.â€
There were various comparisons, such as he grips and rips like Tendulkar or has the speed of hands through the ball as Ali Brown. Indeed, not since Brown have I seen an Englishman so dismantle an attack in the way Jayasuriya or Gilchrist do for fun. As a right-hander, he had something of Michael Slater about him, although I’ll go for a more modern Aussie as a comparison, who likewise has plenty more to prove. Shane Watson batted in a very similar fashion in the World Cup, matching power and timing with elegance. He bowls a bit too and has the same bottle blond hair. Time will tell whether Luke Wright can mix it on the same stage.
1 Comment »Video: Monty Panesar dismissing Sachin Tendulkar
By Will 3 years ago, at the end of July, 6 Comments »
A video of Monty dismissing Sachin Tendulkar. Not quite yet his bunny, but…check out those celebrations.
Click here if nothing appears above.
6 Comments »Too highly rated?
By Ian 3 years ago, mid-July, 8 Comments »
I see Kevin Pietersen has been knocked off the top spot in the ODIs by Ricky Ponting. Very difficult to argue with that – Ponting is surely the stand out batsman in both forms of the game. Looking at the other batting rankings, it is difficult to find fault, although on current form, Shiv Chanderpaul ought to be in the test top three at least. Also, I struggle to understand how Mahela Jayawardene doesn’t break into either top ten, while Hussey retains a top five place in both. He’s very good, granted, but is he top five?
The bowlers are altogether more perplexing. For one, how can Shoaib Akhtar still be at number 10 in tests? He’s played four tests since the start of 2006 and taken only a handful of wickets. Maybe in the current game, not playing is the way to climb the rankings. Likewise, Jason Gillespie (22) is still deemed a better Test bowler than Lasith Malinga (28)!
Agreed, it must be difficult to devise a workable system. Also, stats don’t tell the full story. But things start to look decidedly suspect when you inspect the Best Ever Ratings, which is a list of players at their peak. Ponting at four is just about fair enough, given his recent dominance. However, Peter May above Viv Richards shows a flaw, while Matthew Hayden in the top ten is just crazy. KP (21) is one place higher than Sachin and two places higher than Wally Hammond. Enough said.
For the bowlers, I half expected to see the list packed high with bowlers of yesteryear, given how modern bowlers are meant to have struggled, but it does put Murali, McGrath, Pollock, Waqar and Warne in the top 15. Of course, Warne should be in the top three, if not top of the pile. Wasim Akram limps in at number 57 behind the likes of Ntini, Shoaib and Harmison, which doesn’t seem right.
That said, like most critics, I can’t think of a better way. There must be some bright spark at Cricinfo with a formula….?
8 Comments »Wither, bowlers
By Will 4 years ago, mid-November, 6 Comments »
Were the bowlers all blind or drugged into bowling half-volleys?
Two junior cricketers from Hyderabad created history when they added a world-record 721 runs in 40 overs to eclipse the 664-run stand between Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli set in 1987-88. The St Peter’s School openers B Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaaz Tumbi, both 13, hit an unbeaten 320 and 324 respectively in the Hyderabad Cricket Association Inter-School Under-13 tournament on Wednesday.
Show offs.
6 Comments »McGrath v Tendulkar
By Will 4 years ago, mid-September, 1 Comment »
2.6 McGrath to Dravid, no run, this time it’s the offcutter and it threads the gap between Dravid’s bat and body.
2.5 McGrath to Dravid, no run, left alone outside the off stump
2.5 McGrath to Dravid, 1 wide, wide outside off stump and moves wider after pitching.
2.4 McGrath to Dravid, no run, good length on off stump, Dravid gets forward and plays it back to the bowler
2.4 McGrath to Dravid, 1 no ball, McGrath oversteps, that pitched outside off and moved away from Dravid who lets it go
2.3 McGrath to Tendulkar, 1 run, worked through midwicket for a single
2.2 McGrath to Tendulkar, no run, beaten by a unplayable ball. That pitched on middle, opened up Tendulkar, and moved a touch away to beat the outside edge
2.1 McGrath to Tendulkar, no run, bang on the helmet, McGrath digs it in short and the ball doesn’t get up as much as Tendulkar thought it would. He ducks into it and the ball crashes into the helmet. What a start to the McGrath-Tendulkar battle
The McGrath-Tendulkar battle has resumed. India are chasing 245 to win.
1 Comment »Duckworth, Lewis, Carib
By Will 4 years ago, mid-September, No Comments; be the first!
Del, protector of the Wisden wallets, rose from his seat this afternoon and jeered “Editorial! Duckworth and Lewis…friends of the West Indies.”
A fervent West Indies fan, he was just slightly pleased at Duck’n'Loo’s calculations which helped them down India in yesterday’s one-dayer. And all that, in spite of 141* from Sachin Tendulkar…on comeback!
No Comments »Tendulkar’s back
By Will 4 years ago, mid-July, No Comments; be the first!
Sachin Tendulkar is back and has been declared fit to play in the tri-series in Sri Lanka:
“Tendulkar has been undergoing rehabilitation under the supervision of team physiotherapist John Gloster and in the last five days has made progress satisfactory enough to make him available for the Sri Lanka series,” he told reporters. “The report we have got is that Sachin is fit to play. He is available for selection again.”
More at Cricinfo
No Comments »Sachin Tendulkar’s 50 at The Oval
By Will 4 years ago, mid-July, 1 Comment »
Tendulkar hit 50 against Pakistan tonight but Shahid Afridi and Inzamam-ul-Haq powered Pakistan to victory. It was a (wet) charity game at (a very gloomy) The Oval. They raised £250,000. Stuck a brief report up at Cricinfo including photos.
1 Comment »Sachin polaroid
By Will 4 years ago, at the end of June, 2 Comments »
Utterly pointless “polaroid effect” of a photo I took of Sachin Tendulkar:
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