This is it. The end of a 'great habit' as Harsha Bhogle puts it. Sachin Tendulkar has announced his decision to retire from international cricket after his 200th test. One of the greatest men to have ever stepped on a cricket field is to retire soon. 24 years of Sachin, 24 years of utmost joy. The tributes are flowing as expected, understandably leaking of nostalgia and emotion. Everyone has their own story of watching Sachin Tendulkar play. Here's my tale.
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To me, Sachin Tendulkar has been there forever. He was there when I was born and he is still there 16 and a half years later.
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I grew up abroad, in a country which had and still has no exposure for cricket. It is a nation crazy about football, but it is not a great footballing nation either. Due to this atmosphere, I had no interest in cricket or sports in general as a child, despite us being in constant touch with the Indian community there. But, I knew one name. Sachin Tendulkar. He was one of the very few cricketers whose names that I knew before beginning to watch cricket. My earliest recollection of having something to do with Sachin is me sitting in the huge kitchen that we had abroad sticking his picture in my EVS book with my mother saying "Anga ottu!(Stick it there)" in the background. That was for an activity in EVS in 1st or 2nd grade for which we had to stick the pictures of our favourite sports persons and singers in our activity books.There was no solid reason on my part to stick it, because I had not watched him play. I just knew his name; but that was not the reason why I stuck that picture. My mother told me years later that she made me stick his picture there because I knew no sports person and everybody knew his name. That picture was of him in his ODI jersey. Little did I know then that I would watch and appreciate his batting one day.
Fate brought me back to India at the age of 10, but my opinion about cricket still did not change. It was the year 2007. During the Pooja holidays that year, my mother and I along with my grandmother had gone to Narsapur, a small town in Andhra Pradesh, to visit my grand-uncle and aunt. My grand-uncle is a huge cricket fan. The day after coming back from a brief visit to Vizag during that trip, he switched on the television in the evening and began watching an ODI between India and Australia as we joined him in the hall. I could not understand anything that went on on the television, but I was just sitting there because almost everyone in the house was there. I saw flashes of Sachin, Robin Utthapa (if I am not mistaken) and Andrew Symmonds(I did not know his name at that time) on the television. The match began to get close and my grandmother went to bed thinking that India would lose. Only me, my grand-uncle and my mother were left in the hall. We eventually won the match, and Sachin must have played a match-winning innings because I saw a huge picture of him splashed across the sports page of the newspaper which my grand-uncle was reading the next day. The headline also had the word "Tendulkar" in block letters.
In 2008, after the Mumbai attacks, I remember hearing something about Sachin hitting a century. I came to know 2 years later that that was the century that he hit during the Chennai test vs. England to win us the match. In 2010, I heard of his double century in ODI cricket. A few days later, the IPL began and as everyone was watching it in the country, I too began watching it. During the course of the tournament, I began to like cricket. As Harsha Bhogle or Sunil Gavaskar once said, "In India, everyone from the CEO of a company to a paan-wala watches cricket". That stinging atmosphere had finally caught up with me. There was a match in the IPL, I remember, which CSK had narrowly won vs. MI in Chennai. Sachin was the one who had waged a lone battle and had eventually got dehydrated. That match was the one from which I learnt the importance of a pitch in a match.
I began to get bored without cricket after the IPL, so I threw myself at international cricket. I followed the World T20, the Zimbabwe tri-series and the Asia Cup, learning a lot about the game and life along the way. The Sri Lankan test series finally presented me with an opportunity to watch Sachin Tendulkar bat. He hit a 200 during the drab SSC test match on a pitch which was a bowler's graveyard. The last day of the third Test at the P.Sara Oval was the only day of that series which I could watch properly because it was a Saturday. I watched a wonderful innings from VVS Laxman to yet again rescue us from trouble to win us the Test match, but Tendulkar's contribution in the form of a half-century and the partnership that he had had with him could not be forgotten.
Everyone had always said that Sachin was great. During the next Test series that India played, the Border-Gavaskar series, I understood why. It was a fantastic series with both the Tests being very interesting and Sachin had a phenomenal series, winning the man-of-the-series trophy. The double century that he scored in the second test at Bangalore will always be a cherished innings for me. I will never forget some of the shots that he played in that innings; the cover drives, the paddle sweeps and the lofted shots down the ground. I still remember the huge sixes that he hit off Nathan Hauritz. That innings is all the more special to me because the moment Sachin hit the 200th run, I understood something very important from a cricketing perspective. When he raised his bat and helmet to the sky in acknowledgement of the crowd's cheers, I understood the meaning of Test Cricket. Since that day, I have always maintained that Test Cricket is a test of character, a test of skill and a test of patience and endurance.
Then came the all the drumming for his 50th test ton. To me, Sachin was unfazed by all that. He played really well in the 2nd and 3rd tests of the test series versus New Zealand, scoring 2 half-centuries, if I remember right. When the 50th ton did arrive, I was away in a temple outside Chennai. It was pure drama. My grandmother telephoned and asked whether we would like to come and my mother agreed. I refused. India was in a horrible position in the first test versus South Africa and hurtling towards an innings defeat, but I had a bit of hope left inside me that something would happen to avoid the innings defeat at least. My mother, after giving up on trying to convince me to come, left the house to the car that was waiting in front of the apartment complex. That moment, Suresh Raina edged a short ball to the slip cordon and I lost all hope. I hurriedly telephoned my mother and asked whether I could come and ran downstairs to the car, which had not left. I sat inside the car with a heavy heart and pondered about the Test match. At the temple, I and my grandfather discussed heatedly about the match. My grandfather was already suggesting a test debut for R. Ashwin. We discussed about the game all the way back home as well. As soon as I reached home and switched on the television, I got the news that Sachin had hit a 100. Overjoyed, I telephoned my grandfather and said, "Thatha(grandfather),Thatha,Sachin has scored a 100!Dhoni is with him now!" and my grandfather said, "Oh. Good". When I got off the phone, my mother said, "It is a special 100 as it is his 50th". I just said, "Oh...oh". In my joy that he had scored a century, I had momentarily forgotten that it was the 50th ton.
During that series, I discovered what a great professional Sachin was. I also discovered his willingness to always learn and improve despite being a great player. In a hotel room in Kumbakonam during the 2nd Test at Durban, I watched as Sachin played a wonderful drive on the off-side off Lonwabo Tsotsobe. It was during India's second innings. I remembered that he had gotten out to a similar ball in the previous innings bowled by the same bowler. It was quite evident that he had practised and I thought to myself, "This is the difference between a good player and a great one". There is a cliche in cricket which says, "The word 'legend' is often misused, but not in this case". That series witnessed some of Sachin's greatest batting as he went on to score his 51st test century in the final test in Capetown with panache. Many people said that the contest between him and Dale Steyn was one to behold. I wished that I had been there to witness it as I had been unable to watch a major part of his innings due to school. I was there for the 100th run though.
I remember being excited to watch the first ODI between India and South Africa as I had never watched Sachin Tendulkar bat in an ODI before. But, his stays at the crease in both the games that he played in that series were short and he left the field due to a minor injury during SA's innings in the second game. He resurfaced during the World Cup and I got my desire of watching him in full flow in ODI cricket. In the match versus England, he scored a wonderful century. I celebrated 1 year of watching the game on March 12th 2011 by watching that fluent 100 scored by him in the match versus South Africa. Though India lost the game due to typical reasons (the bowling[especially in the last 20 overs of the match] and the batting powerplay mess up[the not so typical reason]), it was a good match. Sachin was not at his best in the semi-final with the Pakistani fielders dropping him 4 times. When he got out in the finals, I was away from the television screen due to a bad feeling that I got after Sehwag got out. I thought to myself, "Well done, Sri Lanka, you deserve to win the World Cup". But, we were all treated to a magnificent display of batting by Gambhir, Virat Kohli and Dhoni after that which resulted in India winning the match and the World Cup to boot. Awestruck, I sat in total disbelief as the players took Sachin around the field on their shoulders for a victory lap. I remember writing a short tribute to Sachin's contribution to Indian Cricket in my summary of the World Cup and India's campaign(I am too embarrassed to even think of that summary now to give you all a link of it, but if you want to read it, you can scroll down as I have posted it on the blog. The title is 'India conquer the world').
"It’s too much pain and too much sorrow.Guess I’ll feel the same tomorrow." – The Last Time
(Source: Dileep Premachandran's most recent article. )
I thank my lucky stars for arriving in time to watch Sachin's last excellent year of playing cricket. I say this because after the World Cup, things began to go downhill for him and me. In the morning after the World Cup final, I discovered that my cycle had been stolen in the night along with six others. Since then, I probably had the worst time of my life till April 2012. Though Sachin did not have a bad IPL(great century in one of the matches, full of wonderful shots), I had. My bad year was because I felt that I was not watching the game like I used to before. I felt that I was not enjoying it like I used to before. That phase began right after the World Cup. I longed to watch the game like before again. Some people said that it was because I wanted to concentrate on my studies because I was in 10th grade. But, I knew that it wasn't. Something was amiss. I did not know what it was and what was causing this feeling. I felt like I had been jolted awake from a wonderful dream that was the previous year. I was pained. Even now, it has not come back fully, but it keeps coming and going since April last year and I am pretty sure that I will make a full recovery in due course. My bad year coincided with a bad time for the Indian team and Sachin. I watched as India recorded loss after loss, highlighting the need for fresh blood in the team with every match. I watched as Sachin batted like he was burdened like never before. It was painful to watch him bat. He was not himself. All these years, whenever he went to bat, it was like the entire nation went to bat with him, but he was unfazed. Now, he was bothered by it all. All the pressure on him to get his 100th 100. His own frustration of not being able to score freely. One could tell from the way he batted. From personal experience that year, I can say that if the link between you and something close to you suddenly feels like it has diminished, it pains you and you know that that thing has left you. You feel crippled. Sachin's experience was identifiable for me at that time. Except that he had been associated with cricket for many years and I had been associated with it only for one year which felt like a lifetime. I felt at one point that all the drumming for his 100th international 100 was getting ridiculous. "Leave him alone!", I wanted to say. I have never liked it when people call him 'God'. He is truly great, but not God. I knew that the time for his retirement was nearing.
When the 100th 100 actually arrived, I, like everyone else in the country, felt happy for him. But, my inner self told me that his time was nearing. I felt that when he goes, he must go in a dignified way. Sachin continued to struggle after that. It became all the more painful to watch him bat. I began to fear that the selectors might be forced to intervene. I, like everyone else, felt that for a great player like him, the decision to retire must be taken by him and only him. I also felt that he should exit with dignity. However, all my fears came to rest when he announced his decision to retire from ODI cricket with immediate effect. I was on another visit to Kumbakonam in December last year when I saw his name associated with the word 'oyivu' in a Tamil newspaper in the hotel lobby. I asked my mother, "Amma, 'oyivu' na enna?(What is the meaning of the word 'oyivu'?)". My mother said, "'oyivu' means retirement". For a second, I thought that he had retired from international cricket, but my eyes caught the word 'oru-naal cricket' (ODI cricket) on the second page of the newspaper. My grandfather quipped, "It is time". From that moment, I was confident that when he does retire for good, he will take the decision himself. There were rumours about the selectors having a word with him about his ODI career, but I was confident that he had taken this decision himself. As we went from place to place outside Kumbakonam that day, I think I recalled with detail some of his best ODI innings that I had seen as it happened or during some highlights programme. The most evocative line in the press release was:"Ungalodiya anbu en kanil kanir vara vaikudu". "Your love brings tears to my eyes".
I remember fighting tooth and nail with my mother to take me to the India vs. Australia Test at Chepauk earlier this year. One of the main reasons for me wanting to go was Sachin Tendulkar (some other reasons mentioned in this article written by me at that time). My mother refused, but offered to take me to the Mumbai Indians IPL match held in Chennai. I said, "No. It will not be equivalent to watching him in a Test match or any match in which he is representing India". I reminded her that we could not go anyway due to security reasons as CSK vs. MI matches are always night games. That was that. I had obviously heard of his exploits in Chennai. His enduring romance with the MAC, as journalists would put it. Nine hundred and seventy runs in 10 matches. Most of his knocks here created history. Chennai is a city which values cricket. It boasts of a sporting crowd which is renowned in the world for its knowledge of the game. Here, most of the beaches and parks in the mornings and evenings have old grandfathers talking about the game. I had the pleasure of meeting Tamil Nadu first-class cricketer Malolan Rangarajan's grandfather at a beach near my house last year. Most of us have the habit of reading the SportsStar. Surely, such a crowd would have appreciated a master technician at his best over the years. It surely enjoyed his last visit as a Test batsman. After many months, Tendulkar came into his own during that match. He was batting freely like he hadn't for days. I watched many miles from Chepauk as he pulled out those cover drives fluently. The Tendulkar of old was on display. Many lined up on the third day for a Sachin special but went away with an equally good prize: a masterful batting display by Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Sachin ended his innings at Chepauk with a quick 13* on the final day to help India win the Test match. There was applause all around as he left the field with the curator and other ground staff shaking hands with him. Harsha Bhogle said on commentary, "What a wonderful story it has been".
Sachin couldn't do much after that in that series. I remember standing up as he left the field on the final day of the last game at Delhi and applauding with the Delhi crowd. "We never know. It could be the last time.", I told my mother.
When his decision to retire from International Cricket came to public attention the afternoon before the last, I remember feeling nothing. I had no emotion. Maybe because my mind was clogged with Integral calculus, maybe because I knew it was coming. Hearing of his decision had numbed many people in the country. "It is the right decision. Thankfully, the selectors did not push him out", I thought to myself. But, later that evening, when a news channel played out a few flashes from that Bangalore double, I felt myself go numb. As I watched those paddle sweeps and cover drives again, my heart stopped. My feelings that afternoon could also have been because I don't know the big three, Sachin, Dravid and VVS like some veterans out there do due to my time spent watching the game being short. Regarding Dravid and VVS, I have always maintained that I am not the right person to comment about them as I have not spent more than 3 and a half years watching the game. I have always felt that their contributions to the game can only be justified by the comments of people who have watched them over the years. Apart from saying that they were truly great batsmen, people and role models, I couldn't say much. I could just thank God for giving me an opportunity to watch them play cricket for India before their retirements. But, for Sachin, I have been able to write such a long article(in no way undermining the others' contributions to the game). That evening, all the news channels were eulogising him and a panelist on one of them said: "Sachin's appeal transcends generations. Everyone from a little child to an old man has something appreciative to say about him". So true.
********
Fate brought me back to India at the age of 10, but my opinion about cricket still did not change. It was the year 2007. During the Pooja holidays that year, my mother and I along with my grandmother had gone to Narsapur, a small town in Andhra Pradesh, to visit my grand-uncle and aunt. My grand-uncle is a huge cricket fan. The day after coming back from a brief visit to Vizag during that trip, he switched on the television in the evening and began watching an ODI between India and Australia as we joined him in the hall. I could not understand anything that went on on the television, but I was just sitting there because almost everyone in the house was there. I saw flashes of Sachin, Robin Utthapa (if I am not mistaken) and Andrew Symmonds(I did not know his name at that time) on the television. The match began to get close and my grandmother went to bed thinking that India would lose. Only me, my grand-uncle and my mother were left in the hall. We eventually won the match, and Sachin must have played a match-winning innings because I saw a huge picture of him splashed across the sports page of the newspaper which my grand-uncle was reading the next day. The headline also had the word "Tendulkar" in block letters. I remember being excited to watch the first ODI between India and South Africa as I had never watched Sachin Tendulkar bat in an ODI before. But, his stays at the crease in both the games that he played in that series were short and he left the field due to a minor injury during SA's innings in the second game. He resurfaced during the World Cup and I got my desire of watching him in full flow in ODI cricket. In the match versus England, he scored a wonderful century. I celebrated 1 year of watching the game on March 12th 2011 by watching that fluent 100 scored by him in the match versus South Africa. Though India lost the game due to typical reasons (the bowling[especially in the last 20 overs of the match] and the batting powerplay mess up[the not so typical reason]), it was a good match. Sachin was not at his best in the semi-final with the Pakistani fielders dropping him 4 times. When he got out in the finals, I was away from the television screen due to a bad feeling that I got after Sehwag got out. I thought to myself, "Well done, Sri Lanka, you deserve to win the World Cup". But, we were all treated to a magnificent display of batting by Gambhir, Virat Kohli and Dhoni after that which resulted in India winning the match and the World Cup to boot. Awestruck, I sat in total disbelief as the players took Sachin around the field on their shoulders for a victory lap. I remember writing a short tribute to Sachin's contribution to Indian Cricket in my summary of the World Cup and India's campaign(I am too embarrassed to even think of that summary now to give you all a link of it, but if you want to read it, you can scroll down as I have posted it on the blog. The title is 'India conquer the world'). (Source: Dileep Premachandran's most recent article. )
I thank my lucky stars for arriving in time to watch Sachin's last excellent year of playing cricket. I say this because after the World Cup, things began to go downhill for him and me. In the morning after the World Cup final, I discovered that my cycle had been stolen in the night along with six others. Since then, I probably had the worst time of my life till April 2012. Though Sachin did not have a bad IPL(great century in one of the matches, full of wonderful shots), I had. My bad year was because I felt that I was not watching the game like I used to before. I felt that I was not enjoying it like I used to before. That phase began right after the World Cup. I longed to watch the game like before again. Some people said that it was because I wanted to concentrate on my studies because I was in 10th grade. But, I knew that it wasn't. Something was amiss. I did not know what it was and what was causing this feeling. I felt like I had been jolted awake from a wonderful dream that was the previous year. I was pained. Even now, it has not come back fully, but it keeps coming and going since April last year and I am pretty sure that I will make a full recovery in due course. My bad year coincided with a bad time for the Indian team and Sachin. I watched as India recorded loss after loss, highlighting the need for fresh blood in the team with every match. I watched as Sachin batted like he was burdened like never before. It was painful to watch him bat. He was not himself. All these years, whenever he went to bat, it was like the entire nation went to bat with him, but he was unfazed. Now, he was bothered by it all. All the pressure on him to get his 100th 100. His own frustration of not being able to score freely. One could tell from the way he batted. From personal experience that year, I can say that if the link between you and something close to you suddenly feels like it has diminished, it pains you and you know that that thing has left you. You feel crippled. Sachin's experience was identifiable for me at that time. Except that he had been associated with cricket for many years and I had been associated with it only for one year which felt like a lifetime. I felt at one point that all the drumming for his 100th international 100 was getting ridiculous. "Leave him alone!", I wanted to say. I have never liked it when people call him 'God'. He is truly great, but not God. I knew that the time for his retirement was nearing.
When the 100th 100 actually arrived, I, like everyone else in the country, felt happy for him. But, my inner self told me that his time was nearing. I felt that when he goes, he must go in a dignified way. Sachin continued to struggle after that. It became all the more painful to watch him bat. I began to fear that the selectors might be forced to intervene. I, like everyone else, felt that for a great player like him, the decision to retire must be taken by him and only him. I also felt that he should exit with dignity. However, all my fears came to rest when he announced his decision to retire from ODI cricket with immediate effect. I was on another visit to Kumbakonam in December last year when I saw his name associated with the word 'oyivu' in a Tamil newspaper in the hotel lobby. I asked my mother, "Amma, 'oyivu' na enna?(What is the meaning of the word 'oyivu'?)". My mother said, "'oyivu' means retirement". For a second, I thought that he had retired from international cricket, but my eyes caught the word 'oru-naal cricket' (ODI cricket) on the second page of the newspaper. My grandfather quipped, "It is time". From that moment, I was confident that when he does retire for good, he will take the decision himself. There were rumours about the selectors having a word with him about his ODI career, but I was confident that he had taken this decision himself. As we went from place to place outside Kumbakonam that day, I think I recalled with detail some of his best ODI innings that I had seen as it happened or during some highlights programme. The most evocative line in the press release was:"Ungalodiya anbu en kanil kanir vara vaikudu". "Your love brings tears to my eyes".  |
| Tendulkar walks in to bat in his final Test match at one of his favourite grounds, the MAC |
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| Sachin Tendulkar walks to the crease to bat for the final time at Chepauk |
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| Tendulkar plays a shot off Nathan Lyon on the final day of the Chennai Test |
Sachin couldn't do much after that in that series. I remember standing up as he left the field on the final day of the last game at Delhi and applauding with the Delhi crowd. "We never know. It could be the last time.", I told my mother.
When his decision to retire from International Cricket came to public attention the afternoon before the last, I remember feeling nothing. I had no emotion. Maybe because my mind was clogged with Integral calculus, maybe because I knew it was coming. Hearing of his decision had numbed many people in the country. "It is the right decision. Thankfully, the selectors did not push him out", I thought to myself. But, later that evening, when a news channel played out a few flashes from that Bangalore double, I felt myself go numb. As I watched those paddle sweeps and cover drives again, my heart stopped. My feelings that afternoon could also have been because I don't know the big three, Sachin, Dravid and VVS like some veterans out there do due to my time spent watching the game being short. Regarding Dravid and VVS, I have always maintained that I am not the right person to comment about them as I have not spent more than 3 and a half years watching the game. I have always felt that their contributions to the game can only be justified by the comments of people who have watched them over the years. Apart from saying that they were truly great batsmen, people and role models, I couldn't say much. I could just thank God for giving me an opportunity to watch them play cricket for India before their retirements. But, for Sachin, I have been able to write such a long article(in no way undermining the others' contributions to the game). That evening, all the news channels were eulogising him and a panelist on one of them said: "Sachin's appeal transcends generations. Everyone from a little child to an old man has something appreciative to say about him". So true.
********
The picture above is definitive in many ways. Towards the end of his career, there were many accusations of Sachin playing for records. I for one, think that such accusations are churlish. This man has spent 24 years of his life serving Indian cricket. Saying such things is a poor way of repaying him for all the blood, sweat and toil for the nation's image in cricket. I feel that his decision to retire after his 200th test maybe because he wants to end it in Mumbai, where it all started for him. It is certainly not because of records. There were rumours before Thursday that the selectors spoke to him about retirement. But, I am pretty sure that the selectors did not influence his decision.
Many people say that Sachin is a hero of the middle-class society. My father- who by the virtue of being a Mumbaikar is knowledgeable in Kanga League cricket, Harris Shield cricket and all tournaments in Mumbai-once told me about Sachin telephoning his coach Ramakant Achrekar after hitting that 200 in ODI cricket to ask him whether there were any flaws in that innings. I know that many people have said this before, but I say it again: Despite his greatness, Sachin has remained grounded. His intense focus in every match enabled him to handle truck loads of pressure with ease. This quality in him has been enviable around the world. He is set to leave the game with as much distinction as he played it. He also leaves Indian Cricket in good hands. There are players like Pujara and Kohli in the team who promise much.
The day before yesterday, when the news of his decision to retire broke out, I heard a few people talking about him completing a triple century in Test cricket before his retirement. I also heard a few people debating whether he timed his retirement right. I endorse the view that all of that is immaterial; it is better to enjoy what is left of him and think about what he has done rather than what he has not. I hope I will be there at home to enjoy the last match of his career; being a 12th grader has its privileges. If I am there(which is highly likely), I am sure that I will stand up and applaud in my living room whenever he enters the field to take guard and whenever he leaves after completing his innings.
Men may come and men may go, but there can be only one Sachin Tendulkar.
