It Takes Wisden To Ask: Sachin Tendulkar? Options

[catch22]

THE INDIAN EXPRESS
Thursday, April 07, 2005
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It takes Wisden to ask: Sachin Tendulkar?

Run trickle underlines what facts point to: he can’t win Tests for India

CHANDRESH NARAYANAN

Sachin Tendulkar VISAKHAPATNAM, APRIL 6 Apart from a glorious, nothing-to-lose 55 against Australia on a Mumbai terror track, watching Tendulkar became a colder experience... After his humbling 2003, he seemed to reject his bewitching fusion of majesty and human frailty in favour of a mechanical, robotic accumulation

—Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac 2005

Officially, the Wisden edition will be out tomorrow and will certainly provoke an emotional outburst from Sachin Tendulkar fans.

Sachin, cold? No way, they may say.

But if facts are gospel, cricket’s Bible has only underlined a question that’s been hovering over Tendulkar for some time now: has the superstar been reduced to a passenger in the Indian team?

Yes, there’s captain Sourav Ganguly, too—a joke doing the email circuit says that you can time how long your instant noodles need to be in water with Ganguly's innings—but that’s an easier story.

In the last 11 Tests that India has played, Tendulkar’s 664 runs has contributed just 13.7 per cent of the team total. In the last ten ODIs, this slips to an embarrassing 5.7 per cent—just 88 runs.

But that’s just one chapter. Tendulkar’s role in the team today is far removed from that of even a couple of years ago—he is neither the stayer that Rahul Dravid is nor the destroyer that Virender Sehwag has become.

The majesty—as Wisden noted—is missing, the touch is barely there, and after 123 Tests in over 15 years, he is yet to play that defining innings that has won a game for the country. Even as late as this month, in the Bangalore Test against Pakistan, which India should have saved, and the Mohali Test, in which his 202-ball, 301-minute, 94-run crawl virtually cost the team a win.

Once again, the facts:

• Tendulkar’s average is a falling graph when you trace his record from first-innings knocks to second innings, then fourth-innings chases or match-saving situations.

• Now go back to that fading Caribbean evening in 1999, when Brian Lara took West Indies home past the 300-mark against mighty Australia, with only No 11 Courtney Walsh for company. Remember the way Lara stepped out to McGrath and Gillespie then?

• Back in Bangalore this month, there was Tendulkar—with three 50s behind his back—patting every other ball back in an innings of 16 in 98 balls spread over nearly two and-a-half hours, with India facing a target of 382. The master only managed to increase the pressure on himself and his partner, Dinesh Kaarthick, before the inevitable happened.

This isn’t new. Tendulkar’s career has been one of missed opportunities, of India shut out when he had the key in his hands. Of course, the one that sticks out most is the Chennai Test against Pakistan in 1999, when Tendulkar scored 136 but India lost to Pakistan by just 12 runs.

The master’s dismissal—to a ludicrous inside-out shot off off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq—came when India needed 16 runs to win. And his departure triggered a famous collapse and ended in an infamous defeat.

A lesser-known, but equally crucial, instance is the Barbados Test of 1997. India were chasing just 120 runs and as captain, it was Tendulkar who had to show the way. But he scored just 4 and India kneeled down in front of a distinctly inferior West Indies team.

And then there are more:

• Vs Zimbabwe, Harare, 1998-99: India needed 235 runs to win. Sachin’s contribution to the chase was 7. Result: India lost by 62 runs

• Vs Pakistan, Kolkata, 1998-99: India needed 279 runs for a win. A 100 plus-run opening stand was followed by a collapse, Tendulkar scored 9 after a first-ball duck in the first innings. Result: India lost by 46 runs

• Vs South Africa, Mumbai, 1999-2000: India took a 49-run first-innings lead, thanks to Sachin’s 97, but failed in the second innings. Sachin scored 8. Result: India lost by four wickets

• Vs South Africa, Bloemfontein, 2001-02: Tendulkar scored 155 in the first innings but in the second, with India under pressure facing a 184-run deficit, he fell for 15. Result: India lost by 9 wickets

• Vs West Indies, Kingston, 2002: India needed 408 runs to win but, more importantly, had to bat the day out as there was a strong chance of rain curtailing the match. Tendulkar looked set to lead India out of trouble but was out for 86, his fall triggerred a collapse. The match ended half an hour before the rain started. Result: India lost by 155 runs

Of course, most these black marks have been erased but subsequent spurts of brilliance—though not while chasing a target.

That was then.

Now, with Virender Sehwag showing the way and younger and fitter stars—Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif, for starters—knocking at the doors, it’s time to that question once again: has the superstar been reduced to a mere passenger in the Indian team?



URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=67923

[catch22]

It's happened again. Sachin scores a century but unfortunately India loses the 4th ODI. Bad luck haunts Sachin, on quite a few occassions when he has played a great innings, India lost.