Its been close to two months since 2010 began but I had yet to post something this year. I’ve been waiting for something monumental to get back in the groove and the gods obliged.
The catalyst was of course SRT or Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar – a godlike figure to over a billion of my fellow countrymen and not to mention cricket fans everywhere in the world.
I’ve been blessed to live in the same time period as SRT and witness first hand events which a century down the line will surely turn (like many things do) from history to legend to myth. Things we’ve seen SRT do will surely be scoffed at by skeptics in the years to come. Or atleast they would have if it wasn’t for the fact that our lifetime has been the most documented in history. The rise of the internet and information technology has made sure that these deeds will never be doubted or forgotten.
Someone once said, “Cricket is an Indian game which was accidentally discovered by the English.” How true this is. No other nation eats, drinks and breathes cricket like we do. A win can cause loud/massive celebrations with dramatic bursting of crackers making it feel like Diwali and a loss can cause panic/hysteria with shameful burning of cricketer effigies and what-not.
Sachin Tendulkar or just Sachin as he is known everywhere or simply Tendlya as he is affectionately called in Mumbai made his debut in 1989 when I was just 6 yrs old. While I’m sure I saw him play immediately I don’t recollect it easily. I am sure I saw him play a year later and then in 91 in the Friendship series against South Africa which was their return to International cricket after spending years in the wilderness due to Apartheid polices. 1992 was the world cup in Australia/New Zealand and even though we crashed out early I was hooked for life.
I get goosebumps as I’m sure every die-hard cricket fan gets when thinking about some of his greatest knocks and plateaus scaled. Who can forget the epic hundred in Australia as a kid when everyone around him was journeying to and from the pavilion with monotony. Or the twin hundreds against Australia in Sharjah 1998 when his single minded determination almost sealed a heist and then two days later on his 25th birthday another sparkling hundred gave India the game and the trophy. Monumental feats like a emotional hundred in the world cup barely hours after returning from India having performed his father’s last rites still give me the chills. I still remember the fitting riposte he gave to Pakistan’s bowlers in the 2003 world cup in a game he later confessed he had lived and prepared for a year in advance and had trouble sleeping for as well. Such are the aspirations and expectations he has had to live with being given deity status in a country which in the words of Shantaram is the place where love was perfected.
Despite all the stats and feats which any schoolboy could rattle off with great precision (Crossing 34 Test hundreds, over 40 one day hundreds, over 10K runs in both one day and test cricket, the massive 650+ partnership with Vinod Kambli in high school which was then the highest partnership in ANY form of the game, nearing the all time test played record) there were still some feats many considered impossible – for mere mortals that is. Some feats were only dreamed of but as Sachin’s career progressed they started to get realistic. Playing for over 20 years in international cricket has certainly taken its toll on the Little Master but after a series of injuries in 2005-2006 that nearly ended his career his is once again on song and enjoying a fine purple patch. He has scored 10 international hundreds in the past 12 months and the ridiculous achievement of 100 international 100s could realistically be his by end of the year.
Among the boxes he still wanted to tick off was a test triple hundred, a world cup win and a one day double which no one had done before.
Yesterday will live on forever in memory as the ageless wonder finally did it. It might have been 12 years since his apogee when he was battling desert storms but he scored that ONE knock which everyone regardless of age or nationality would remember forever. Having done so much for the purists, this one was for the masses and he did eventually dedicate it to the people of India. He became the first batsmen in odi cricket (which has been around since 1971 and had an additional 10 overs in the early days) to score a double hundred.
It always galled me that a Pakistan batsman had the previous highest score having done so against India in the disastrous Independence Cup in 1997 (sheesh – what a flop show that was) but ‘Sach’ reminded us that even in these tumultuous times – All izz well
