Tendulkar's Longevity (and a ton in vain)

On 24th April 2021, when Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar celebrated his 48th birthday, he finally managed to bring parity between the number of years he had played test cricket vis a vis the number of years outside of it. This is a remarkable feat. A typically successful batsman starts his career at the age of 20, plays for about 16-odd years and retires in his late 30-s. Prodigious talents like Gary Sobers and Mushtaq Mohammad debuted in their late teens (Mushtaq at the age of 16 and Sobers, at 18). Thereafter, both retired after 20 years of international cricket... i.e. before reaching 40. In a different era of cricket, an Yorkshireman, Wilfred Rhodes, debuted for England in 1899 and played his last test in 1930. However, he was 22 when he played his first test. The fact that he could carry on past 50 years of age, reveals that the pace and intensity of cricket between the wars, was perhaps less taxing on the mind and body. Several famous English players of that era had international tenures even after crossing 40 years .... Hobbs, Woolley, Hendren, Hammond, etc.

Tendulkar's single-most significant achievement was his longevity in international cricket... An amazing proof of his consistently high standards of batsmanship and an undying enthusiasm for the game. The second aspect had enabled him to surmount the most crucial pitfall of teenage achievers... viz. mental burn-out and disillusionment. The annals of sporting history are riddled with examples of early, incandescent brilliance, fizzling out without fulfilling the entire promise. (Tendulkar's close friend and batting partner at Sharadashram Vidyamandir, was a case in point). A career spanning two dozen years in the modern-day game, is a feat of utterly Himalayan proportions. The phrase of 'two dozen years' has been used consciously so that I can gush about the first dozen years of his career. I have spent my school-days, using the left side of my brain to admire Gavaskar... and, the right side, to worship (Vivian) Richards. Like Neville Cardus' schoolboy prayer ('Please Lord, let Trumper score a century today in an English victory'), I used to pray for a scintillating Smokin' Joe knock in a respectable draw (or a wishful victory) for India. Tendulkar seemed to bring in a fascinating blend of technique and aggression in his game, that provided me with a whole lot of best traits of both my schoolboy heroes. Over the years, Bombay has given our country many technically accomplished batsmen... Merchant, Hazare, Manjrekar (Sr. and Jr.), Sardesai, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar etc. All of them had earned the unadulterated respect of the top international bowlers of their time (particularly Sunil Gavaskar... one of the greatest technicians in the history of the game). However, we now had a player, who infused a generous dollop of fear into that respect, especially in decade of the 90-s. For the bowlers of the world, the adjective 'worrisome' had changed to 'fearsome'. Why else would Shane Warne, whose mental make-up was that of a champion (even before he bowled like one), go on record, using the words 'Tendulkar' and 'nightmare' in the same sentence?

This amazing Phase-1 of Tendulkar's career was arguably the best exhibition of sustained brilliance in batsmanship, that I have been privileged to savour.

A quick pit-stop for one such glorious but lesser-discussed innings...

The summer of 1996 was probably more remembered for the memorable debuts of Ganguly and Dravid (2nd Test at Lords). However, the tour had commenced, in customary fashion... by losing the 1st test at Birmingham. India's performance in the 2nd innings, against a seaming English attack (Lewis, Mullally and Cork), was a familiarly despairing display of batsmen barely getting into double digits.

Amid all this, the cherubic faced-champion, batting at No. 3, scored 122 out of the team's total of 219. He appeared to be playing on a completely different pitch, with 19 effortless hits to the fence (and a six over long off to reach his three figures).

At the 1.02 mark, the back foot punch, through cover, is, for me, the high point of this footage, below. It is this shot that had enamoured Trevor Bailey so much that he had declared that no one played it better than this 'pocket-sized dynamite'. Bailey should know as he has seen many 'pocket sized' champions, at close quarters, during his lifetime... Bradman, Harvey, Weekes, Hanif, Kanhai...

For me, this was arguably, Tendulkar's greatest overseas ton (the tandem with Azhar at Newlands, a year later, comes a close second). The ones at Perth and Sydney in 1992 were brilliant too but one must remember that the opposition did not have too much of a game-plan for Tendulkar, then.

By 1996, every opposition used to spend 75% of their strategic planning on containing / dismissing this self-effacing Mumbaikar. In that context, scoring a lone-hand 122, out of 219, was batsmanship of the highest order. A seminal batsman of the game.

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