Sachins Undisputed Greatness

It really saddens me whenever India loses a Test Match... All the discussions, planning, strategies... down the drain...

Well today India lost against England...at Mumbai.. and there are many reasons for it...(analysis of the reasons for defeat is not what I plan to discuss here.. that can come some other time..) one of them is that...may be the team was too arrogant by playing just 5 batsman.. and 1 of them was 'the' Sachin Tendulkar...

His repetitive failures..(as per his usual standards that is..) ..cant help us think that he is now a shadow of himself..that he is no longer the great player that he was.. that may be it is time to bid the great man adieu... I agree to all of this.. that may be it is time

But what irks me most is when ppl start doubting his greatness... when they say that we remember Dravid winning matches for India..(I am talking test matches here..).. but there is not one innings of Sachin's that we remember... I am like.. what the Fuck!!!

Well.. for once.. let me rid myself of this emotional quotient... considering the great fan of Sachin's that I am... and put the analysing cap on...

the 1st mistake that people make is they take the number of victories as a yardstick to measure the greatness of a player... Well.. here we are talking about individual greatness... how can number of victories be a yardstick to measure that... number of victories gives the greatness of teams.. and not individuals..

Individuals alone can never win Test Matches. It is always either a team performance or atleast 3 individuals playing out of their skins.. Citing some Individual performances the are generally considered great...
1st is Brian Lara's 'so called' match winning performance of 153* at Bridgetown in 1999 against Australia chasing 308.. this innings was great no doubt.. but analysts generally forget that Courtney Walsh had a splendid spell of 5/39 in Australia's 2nd innings restricting them to 146.
2nd is Rahul Dravid's performance at Adelaide when he scored a match winning 233.. but again he had VVS Laxman scoring 148 and Ajit Agarkar bowling out of his skins, taking 6/41 to restrict Australia to 196.
3. VVS Laxman scoring 281 at Eden Gardens after following on..also had Dravid scoring 181 and Harbhajan taking 6/73..
so my point here is proved that though these are innings that stand out.. there were other equally important performances involved.

Well my 2nd point is this: what makes people remember the innings stated above is the sheer desperation that these innings involved.. WI were 238 odd for 8.. India were 80/4 in Adelaide and were following on in Eden Gardens.. these are innings that come once in a lifetime and that Sachin has never been involved in such sensational innings cannot devoid him of his greatness.

The greatness of Sachin lies in the fact that the many occasions where he has won matches for India (again not single handedly..there were other good performances involved..) have not led to desperate situations..that he has done it absolutely effortlessly and without much hue and cry.. and this very effortlessness makes people forget these innings..

Citing a few examples here:(all are match winning performances)
1. his excellent 155* off 191 balls on a detoriorating 3rd Day track in Chennai in 1999 when Warne was turning the ball square..
2. his attacking 193 on a seaming track at Leeds in 2001 which was based on the solid foundation laid by Rahul Dravid.
3. his match winning 126 against Australia at Chennai in 2001 which helped India seal a famous series win.
4. his 194* at Multan where India took the lead.
5. his counter attacking 55* off 83 balls in Mumbai on a track that was nothing less than pathetic.
6. His 117 in Port of Spain in 2001 where India won the match narrowly and took the lead.
Thus my second point proved.

My 3rd point: Going back to the statement I made before that greatness of a player cannot be judged by the number of matches won. And these is even more true in Tendulkar's case. Most of his brilliant innings have come in a test match that was either drawn or lost.

Let us all agree that in the 90s when Sachin was at his peak, Team India was in doldrums. Sachin, time and again, performed splendidly with the bat. but alas, there were no support performances from anyone else in the team. Again giving examples to support this fact.

1. The 1st innings that comes to mind.. and we all remember this very sadly.. is the brilliant 136 in chennai against Pakistan in 1999.. chasing 271 to win.. India were 76/5 at a stage.. and Sachin with Mongia managed to get India close to victory...and that too when he was suffering from severe back spasms... well that India fell short by 12 runs in the end and that the last 3 wickets fell in a hurry... should not take any credit away from the greatness of the innings... this for me is the greatest innings of the great man.. alas..for a lost cause.
2. 114 on a bouncy Perth track, where all there other famous Indian batsman had single digit scores.. this was the innings where he 1st showed glimpses of greatness..
3. his excellent 116 on a bouncy Melbourne track.. where again the likes of Ganguly and Dravid underperformed..
4. The 169 at Cape Town in 1996.. his partnership with Mohd Azharuddin..where they blasted 250 odd runs in 2 sessions..
there are many more innings... his 155 at Bloemfontain in 2003, his 122 at Edgbaston in 1996.. well all of these innings were for a losing cause... the reason for these losses was not that Sachin performed..but that there were no backup performances from other players.. the batting line up was fragile and the bowling was crap to say the least.. so lets not blame Tendulkar for these and lets give him due credit...

May be Tendulkar today is past his peak... he still shows sparks of brilliance.. but they are sporadic... so let us support him in this sombre hour... and give him a respectful exit... and at the same time, feel priveliged that we witnessed the entire career of one of the best batsmen, cricket has ever produced...