SACHIN Tendulkar is out to prove something. Not to his vast legion of fans. Nor to his small band of detractors. But to himself. However, time is running out. So, he has decided that every opportunity needs to be monetised effectively. Which makes him a man in a hurry lately. Wrestling with the demons inside his head, Tendulkar is conserving and preserving himself for as long as possible. Next month he will be 36, and with the clock ticking, this valuable commodity is leveraging his amazing experience to leave a lasting legacy. Now one would argue that what is wrong with his present legacy? After all hasn’t the little big fella scored truckloads of runs in both forms of the game? Of course he has, the sheer volume leaving nobody in doubt about his greatness.
But Tendulkar is a thinking cricketer. Always has been. And he thinks about his record, the quality of those runs, his fitness and his stupendous legacy. Has he done enough in terms of quality is a question that plagues his mind? Over the last year or so, this might have got pronounced. One of his Mumbai and India team mates, a fellow Mumbaikar Sanjay Manjrekar once said that what plagues him is self doubt of a different kind. Runs and hundreds yes, but against what type of opposition, on which kind of wickets and in what circumstances is the new underlying credo for Tendulkar. There is so much that he wants to do, time permitting that is. He wants to right things in his own head, exorcise the demons and placate them. That is his karma right now.
And there is a clear thread of continuity in this maxim. He has taken his game to the next level of competency. Look at his last tour to Australia. Just like his first. Two big hundreds – 153 at Adelaide and an unbeaten 154 at Sydney, also a superb 71 in the Perth win – in India’s epic battle against the brash Aussies in the Test series. He knew it was his last tour to Australia. Then he was the only survivor of the big five – Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and V V S Laxman in the one day CB tri series against the Aussies and Sri Lanka. A sudden loss of form, the doubts return, till he raises the bar for himself. In turn he raises the level of his team’s game as well. With tyros around him, he takes India into the final, after getting past Lanka with a well crafted half century. Then in the best of three finals, he plays as if his very life depended on it. A master of his craft, Tendulkar has begun to play within his own set parameters. A hundred, his first in Australia in one day cricket and a 91 finish off Australia to see Dhoni’s boys lift the cup. At the core of this is Tendulkar, shy and reticent about his personal achievements. He speaks about the team winning and his contribution towards that cause.
Not since the fabled exploits against Australia in Sharjah when he scored back to back hundreds has Tendulkar shown such consistency in winning causes. It was April 1998 and Tendulkar played out of his skin to launch a savage attack on the Aussies including Shane Warne. Strangely, the final was played on his 25th birthday. If the 143 in the must win game against the same opponent was a blinder then the clinical 134 was an even more monumental innings. The two knocks were first among equals, each greater than the other and led to a raft of hyperbole about the little man’s genius.
It reminded many in Sharjah of another innings that Tendulkar had played against Pakistan at the same venue again in April, but two years earlier. While he has reserved his best for the Aussies tormenting them time and again in Test match cricket, the one day knocks last year in Australia must have been particularly gratifying. Who can forget his assault on Shane Warne in Chennai in March 1998 on a wearing wicket. An attacking leg spinner Warne going round the wicket and a disdainful Tendulkar depositing him over the mid wicket fence is a memory that many aficianados will cherish forever.
But there have been niggles in the mind. Niggles like the fourth innings at Chennai against a full strength Pakistan where he fought valiantly taking on the guile of Saqlain Mushtaq in the fourth innings. Battling to 137, he took India within 17 runs of a famous victory, and then sobbed inconsolably when we were vanquished. Saqlain had bowled him for duck in the first innings and he deliberately targeted him. Just as he had targeted Warne a year earlier in Chennai after the alchemist had got him out for 4. A poor fourth innings record has haunted Sachin since that fateful day. But he buried the ghosts at Chennai against the visiting Englishmen late last year. Clearly here is a man on a mission. A personal mental mission. An undefeated 103 paved the way for the greatest run chase in the sub continent. Later a visibly happy Tendulkar dedicated the century and victory ‘to all the people who have gone through such terrible times in the 26/11 attacks’ in his home city of Mumbai. Happy and elated, but also emotionally charged for he had guided India to 387 for 4. Saqlain like Banquo’s ghost was finally buried six feet under.
He has tempered his batting style, added some delectable shots and nursed his ageing body for the constant rigours that a relentless regimen of cricket comes with. He has opted for the father figure’s role in the Indian team teeming with youth. It is a role that he is beginning to get accustomed to. Nurturing, harnessing, advising the young cricketers. Offering his large body of experience. Again when the Australians toured India last year, he showed his penchant for his favourite attack in world cricket by contributing substantively in India’s 2-0 win. He was coming out of a miserable tour of Sri Lanka where Ajantha Mendis and Muralitharan had asked searching questions of the master bat. But driven as he is these days by this new found zeal to correct the mistakes of the past, he first went ahead of Brian Charles Lara’s Test runs record. Fittingly, it was against his arch rivals Australia. Then his 40th hundred. Blue sky is what Tendulkar is planning to leave between himself and those who follow him in the Holy Grail of batsmanship.
Just when one thought that his appetite for records was over after his exploits against Australia and England at home, he went and smashed an unbelievable 163, his first one day hundred in New Zealand. He laid out a smorgasbord of all his strokeplay, orthodox, unconventional to leave everyone stupefied. You can argue that after 20 years at the top, what does this man have to prove to anybody? Again the bat does the talking. His 42nd Test hundred -160 – against New Zealand at Hamilton. Sunil Gavaskar in many ways the guru to this shishya had once predicted that Tendulkar would score 15,000 Test runs and 45 Test hundreds. Maybe Mount 15k will prove difficult, but 45 hundreds is there for the taking. India next goes to the West Indies.
Tendulkar has achieved everything there is to achieve, though one knows that he hankers for the World Cup. He has been part of Indian teams which have now won in West Indies, England, Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Pakistan and if goes well on the present tour then New Zealand as well. Should he be preserved for the 2011 World Cup? Well Sanath Jaisurya is still playing and he is closer to 40. It will be fitting for Sachin to be part of a World Cup winning squad. Next stop West Indies and the land of Brian Lara and Sir Vivian Richards. Tendulkar has battled comparisons all his cricketing life. When he started out, he was compared to Inzamam ul Haq, Graeme Hick, Brian Lara and even school mate Vinod Kambli. Barring Lara, they all faded away sooner than later. Lara has a record that Tendulkar envies. All ya people in the Caribbean, watch out, here comes the master.
