As the Indian icon plays in a historic 169th Test match, it should be remembered that he has excelled not just with the bat but also in ball.
Sachin Tendulkar is playing in a historic 169th Test match for India having made his debut in November 1989.
To understand what Sachin Tendulkar has meant to Indian cricket, it's necessary to look beyond his record-breaking 169th Test appearance, achieved yesterday in the series against Sri Lanka, and his batting heroics. Think instead of a man who has 198 wickets, 154 of them in one-day internationals, an individual who has never been less than fully involved out on the field despite having been around since the days when Mike Gatting was leading a rebel tour of South Africa.
Think back to a World Series game in Australia in December 1991. The West Indies were waning as a limited-overs force, but when they skittled India for 126 in Perth, few gave Mohammad Azharuddin's side a chance of salvaging anything from the game. But West Indies then fell apart themselves and it was left to Curtly Ambrose and Anderson Cummins to get them within range. Ambrose was run out, and Cummins and Patrick Patterson then levelled the scores with Azhar having turned to Tendulkar's medium pace as a last resort.
With the last ball of his only over, Tendulkar tempted Cummins to flash outside off stump. Azhar took a fine catch in the slips, and the game was tied. Two years later, the boy with the golden arm was at it again, this time in the Hero Cup semi-final against South Africa, a team who were coming into their own as a one-day powerhouse. Again it was Tendulkar that Azhar turned to, with six needed from the final over. He gave up just three, and went on to sneak one through Brian Lara's defence in a final where West Indies were routed.
In Tests, Tendulkar's partnership-breaking ability came to the fore in matches where he didn't contribute as heavily with the bat. In India's most cherished victory of all, at Eden Gardens in 2001, he made 10 in both innings. But facing a race against the clock to bowl Australia out on the final afternoon, it was his intervention after tea that effectively killed off Steve Waugh's hopes of clinging on to a series lead.
On a worn pitch and with the capacity crowd bellowing approval, he ripped the ball at near-right angles to supplement Harbhajan Singh's heroics at the other end. Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden and Shane Warne all fell leg-before, unable to fathom the extent of turn as Tendulkar tossed up leg breaks, googlies and the odd quicker one.
More than two years later, at Adelaide, he made 1 in the first innings of a game made memorable by the batting of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, and some rare Ajit Agarkar moments in the Test-match sun. With Australia setting India a target on a surface where chasing has never been easy, Tendulkar made his mark when it mattered most, with Australia 142 ahead and having seven wickets in hand. Damien Martyn and Steve Waugh were undone in successive overs, both by prodigious turn and edges to Dravid at slip.
In Multan the following spring, he produced another Warne-like special to bowl Moin Khan through his legs to ruin Pakistan's hopes of saving the follow-on. India went on to win by an innings and 52 runs, and the dismissal buried some ghosts from the recent past. At Eden Gardens in 1999, Moin's gritty 70 had been pivotal as Pakistan recovered from 26 for six to win a Test match.
His last Test wicket came at Wellington in April 2009, and you have to go back a further 18 months and a game against Pakistan in Guwahati for his last ODI wickets. A shoulder that required surgery has been keenly felt on Asian pitches, where his spin and ability to wobble the ball off the seam gave his captains an option well worth checking out.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the current India captain, will console himself with the thought that the bowling decline has gone hand-in-hand with a batting resurgence. In seven Tests this year, Tendulkar averages more than 96, and has five centuries. Overall he is averaging 56.25 in Tests.
Back when he started playing, 20 Test centuries and 10 more in the one-day arena marked you out as one of the all-time greats. The benchmarks he has gone on to set in both forms of the game make a mockery of everyone else who has played in this era.
Consider this to put things into perspective – Andrew Flintoff is five years younger and his peak lasted six years, from the hundred against South Africa at Lord's in 2003 to the Ashes-winning encore of last summer. Tendulkar was scoring match-saving Test hundreds at Old Trafford when Flintoff was 12, and he'll play his sixth World Cup next spring, while Fred watches from the sidelines.
As Sharda Ugra, who has seen Tendulkar progress from prodigy to old hand, asked in Cricinfo: "Stretch the imagination 22 years ahead and see if you can pick any fresh Test stripling of today – Umar Akmal, Eoin Morgan, Steve Smith, Adrian Barath – to go past 170 Tests." You can't, can you? Few records in sport are safe, not Bob Beamon's, not Hank Aaron's and not even Jack Nicklaus's of 18 majors. But Tendulkar, like Bradman and his 99.94, will endure. No one else will even get close.
Regards,
Nisit Kumar Parida
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