My biggest hero rides into the sunset
There is frenzy in the media all around as Sachin plays his final test match. The newspapers have been full of tributes for the last one month, facebook and twitter are flooded with 'Sachin memories' and even people who have no interest in cricket have been following the test match over these last few days.
In what has been a totally one sided test series, the legend of Sachin has completely overshadowed everything else. As he was dismissed on Nov 15, 2013 for the last time in test cricket (c Darren Sammy, b Narsingh Deonarine for 74), the entire country gasped, as they were all praying for the little master to score one last century, raise that bat one last time towards the heavens. From there on, no one really cared how much India scored, because the way WI were playing, the result was never in doubt.
Having watched Sachin walk off a cricket field for the last time in India colours, I am currently overwhelmed. I have wept like a baby through the presentation ceremony and through the most heart warming speech that Sachin made. A tribute to the humility of the man was the way he made it a point to thank every one who has been part of his career, even carrying a list of names he wanted to mention. Parents, wife, in-laws, Achrekar Sir, playing for India, pray, friends, dream, cricket.....these were the most recurring words during his emotional speech, which speaks volumes of the values of the man. I'm not sure if this article is going to make sense because I'm too emotional as I compose this. But I will do so all the same, because I want to capture these thoughts forever.
So what is it about Sachin? Why was everyone teary-eyed at the Wankhede? Why did other great players like Dravid or Kumble or Ganguly not evoke such an outpouring of love from the entire country? I really don't know. It can't be the numbers alone. Dravid has definitely been as valuable as Sachin, Ganguly is undoubtedly India's greatest captain ever, but I didn't cry when they walked off the cricket field for the last time. Neither did thousands of others.
For some reason, all of us have a very strong bias to people, incidents, memories and friends associated with our formative years. That is perhaps why my dad's generation would believe Viv Richards was the greatest ever. I'm not going to write about Sachin's exploits on the field here. That is very well documented and greater people than me have written about him in detail. I just want to capture the way a generation felt about Sachin.
Amitabh Bachchan & Kapil Dev were my heroes when I was a little kid. I used to feel bad when Amitabh got hit by a villain in a movie. Similarly, I used to feel bad when Kapil didn't perform well. Towards the end of the '80s and the early '90s, both of these heroes were nearing the 'over the hill' stage in their careers. Amitabh was past the stage where he could convincingly pull off a young hero's role and Kapil's pace was dropping. He was still a very good bowler, no doubt, but not as effective as he used to be. When you idol worship someone, the hardest part is to accept their decline. That is exactly what happened in the early '90s, when Kapil was clearly past his prime. That was the same time when Amitabh went through a dip in his fortunes. A new hero was needed; someone the country could look up to as a role model, someone who provided hope in those times when everything in India was mediocre. A diminutive, curly haired, cherubic boy from Bombay filled that gap. He went on to capture the imagination of a nation which was in transition, having moved from the stifling license raj regime to a liberalized economy. By the mid '90s, Sachin was already a darling of the masses. It was a time when he won most matches for India single handedly. I still remember my brother and I referring to Sachin as 'India' during those days. An Amul advertisement summed it up perfectly - 'Ten Du and Ten Don't'. That was exactly the state of Indian cricket back then. Life would come to a halt when Sachin batted. Streets would be empty, people would congregate around radio sets in offices, trains and public places when he batted. Whenever India was playing, an inevitable question was 'Sachin ka kitna hua?', sometimes even before asking India's score. That was the extent to which he had become popular. Most of all, people used to switch off their TVs the moment he got out, knowing that India didn't have a chance once he was gone. That was almost invariably the case.
By the late '90s, many experts around the world had started hailing Sachin as the best batsman in world cricket. By that time, he had achieved a demi-god status in India. For me, very often, Sachin's performance was more important than India's. Somehow, I could sense it on the day he was going to get a big score. Just the way he approached batting on some days was different and on those days, it didn't matter who the bowler was or what the pitch was like, they would all disappear. On other days, he would look tentative from the start and I knew he was going to be dismissed cheaply. As soon as he came in to bat, my heart would beat faster and my blood pressure possibly increased a few levels. Till the time he safely negotiated about 20 - 25 balls, I'm sure all his well wishers would be on the edge of their seats. Once he got past that, it was almost inevitable that the bowlers would pay. There was this 'heart in the mouth' feeling whenever there was an appeal against him. The day he played well, I would either not watch the TV at all or not move from the TV, depending on what I was doing when he started batting. I have always been 'hyperstitious', if I may coin a term, when Sachin bats. I just didn't want to jinx him in any way, which meant I missed some of his great innings on live TV, happy to watch it on the highlights later in the evening.
Like millions of other Indians, I have prayed for Sachin when he has had career-threatening injuries, have always defended him whenever anyone had a criticism to make of him and have always wished that every record in cricket should be his for eternity. Ponting, for a long time threatened to overtake Sachin as far as test hundreds are concerned. Luckily for all Sachin fans, Ponting's batting deteriorated post 2008-09 and he was never the same force again, while Sachin continued to be very consistent for a year or two longer. At the moment, Jacques Kallis is the only genuine threat to Sachin's record of 51 test centuries. Kallis is on 44. To get 7 more, he'd probably have to play about 30 tests more, assuming his game doesn't dip from here on. From what I saw in the IPL this year, Kallis doesn't seem to be the Kallis of old and my personal opinion is that we're going to hear of his retirement very soon. I hope that happens before he gets to 51. I don't want anyone, not even another Indian, to go past Sachin.
I started understanding and following cricket towards the mid '90s. With Sachin gone, all the stalwarts of that generation are now retired, with the exception of Kallis. Just remembering all those names makes me nostalgic - Alec Stewart, Mike Atherton, Darren Gough, Brian Lara, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Hansie Cronje, Jonty Rhodes, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younus, Inzamam ul Haq, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Akhtar, Aravinda D'Silva, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chris Cairns, Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Mark Taylor, Steve & Mark Waugh, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Glen McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee, Damien Fleming, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Saurav Ganguly.
Which brings me back to the point I made earlier in this article. With that generation of players now gone, it feels like a big part of my youth is gone forever. I watched all these stalwarts during my formative years, which is why I will always have a special place in my heart for all of them. Today, at the Wankhede, as Sachin walked off a cricket field for the last time as a player, bringing a close to a fairy tale that began almost exactly 24 years ago (Nov 15, 1989 to Nov 16 2013), a whole generation of Indians would have relived those years. A whole generation of people would have remembered how this man shouldered the expectations of a cricket crazy country for a quarter of a century, how this man played his cricket with honour, pride and dignity for all those years, never once in the news for the wrong reason, never having lost his cool, never involved in an ugly on-field incident, never showing dissent at an umpire's decision (even though he's been at the receiving end of some really bad ones in his career), but most of all, for his humility despite being the 'God' for a billion Indians and for never once having thrown a tantrum or having behaved with a superstar's attitude in public.
For me personally, Sachin embodies the values of the Indian middle class. He was not born in a privileged family. He had to work very very hard to get to that cult status and never once has he taken anything for granted. Till his last series, he has remained as passionate and as enthusiastic about cricket as a little child is about discovering new things. Lesser mortals like us will never realize what it means to achieve all that he has, to have well wishers all over the world, to have the adulation of opponents as well as his own countrymen. Above all else, Sachin to me, represented all that is good about Bombay, the city which I call my own, the city whose place cannot be taken by another in my heart, and the city where people are willing to work very very hard to make their fortunes, without shortcuts and without excuses. The way he paid his respect to the pitch before walking off the field today just summarized all that was so endearing about this man.
I will forever miss the 'Sachinnnn...Sachin' chants, the butterflies in my tummy as he walked in to bat, the anguish when he was given out wrongly, the disappointment when he didn't do well & the sense of personal achievement when he did, the sense of pride when the papers had good things to say about him and the sense of security knowing that he was still to bat. Like my friends have posted on facebook today, one question which people all over India will no longer have to ask is 'Sachin ka kitna hua?'. I liked a statement by Waqar Younis in today's papers : "They say any thing that goes up has to come down, but Sachin never came down". Most of all, I feel a sense of personal loss. It's only now that the realization has sunk in that I will never watch Sachin walk in at no. 4 for India, that the scoreboard will never show his name again, something that all of us have almost taken for granted. A hundred Virat Kohlis and Rohit Sharmas may come and go, they may achieve great success and take India to the top of the cricketing world, may shatter a lot of batting records, including some of Sachin's, but whatever anyone may achieve, Sachin will always be my favourite ever and the greatest batsman that I have ever seen, just like Shane Warne will always be the greatest spinner for me, even though Muralitharan may have 92 more wickets.
A very heart-wrenching and tearful goodbye to you Sachin. I do hope you shall continue to remain connected with Indian Cricket in some capacity or the other. Most of all, thank you for being my hero for so long and for never having let me down. I don't think there will be a greater batsman in my lifetime, for Sachin is a once-in-a-lifetime player. I'm blessed to have witnessed all your greatest innings and to have been part of a generation which drew a lot of inspiration from you. Thanks for all the wonderful memories.
In what has been a totally one sided test series, the legend of Sachin has completely overshadowed everything else. As he was dismissed on Nov 15, 2013 for the last time in test cricket (c Darren Sammy, b Narsingh Deonarine for 74), the entire country gasped, as they were all praying for the little master to score one last century, raise that bat one last time towards the heavens. From there on, no one really cared how much India scored, because the way WI were playing, the result was never in doubt.
Having watched Sachin walk off a cricket field for the last time in India colours, I am currently overwhelmed. I have wept like a baby through the presentation ceremony and through the most heart warming speech that Sachin made. A tribute to the humility of the man was the way he made it a point to thank every one who has been part of his career, even carrying a list of names he wanted to mention. Parents, wife, in-laws, Achrekar Sir, playing for India, pray, friends, dream, cricket.....these were the most recurring words during his emotional speech, which speaks volumes of the values of the man. I'm not sure if this article is going to make sense because I'm too emotional as I compose this. But I will do so all the same, because I want to capture these thoughts forever.
So what is it about Sachin? Why was everyone teary-eyed at the Wankhede? Why did other great players like Dravid or Kumble or Ganguly not evoke such an outpouring of love from the entire country? I really don't know. It can't be the numbers alone. Dravid has definitely been as valuable as Sachin, Ganguly is undoubtedly India's greatest captain ever, but I didn't cry when they walked off the cricket field for the last time. Neither did thousands of others.
For some reason, all of us have a very strong bias to people, incidents, memories and friends associated with our formative years. That is perhaps why my dad's generation would believe Viv Richards was the greatest ever. I'm not going to write about Sachin's exploits on the field here. That is very well documented and greater people than me have written about him in detail. I just want to capture the way a generation felt about Sachin.
Amitabh Bachchan & Kapil Dev were my heroes when I was a little kid. I used to feel bad when Amitabh got hit by a villain in a movie. Similarly, I used to feel bad when Kapil didn't perform well. Towards the end of the '80s and the early '90s, both of these heroes were nearing the 'over the hill' stage in their careers. Amitabh was past the stage where he could convincingly pull off a young hero's role and Kapil's pace was dropping. He was still a very good bowler, no doubt, but not as effective as he used to be. When you idol worship someone, the hardest part is to accept their decline. That is exactly what happened in the early '90s, when Kapil was clearly past his prime. That was the same time when Amitabh went through a dip in his fortunes. A new hero was needed; someone the country could look up to as a role model, someone who provided hope in those times when everything in India was mediocre. A diminutive, curly haired, cherubic boy from Bombay filled that gap. He went on to capture the imagination of a nation which was in transition, having moved from the stifling license raj regime to a liberalized economy. By the mid '90s, Sachin was already a darling of the masses. It was a time when he won most matches for India single handedly. I still remember my brother and I referring to Sachin as 'India' during those days. An Amul advertisement summed it up perfectly - 'Ten Du and Ten Don't'. That was exactly the state of Indian cricket back then. Life would come to a halt when Sachin batted. Streets would be empty, people would congregate around radio sets in offices, trains and public places when he batted. Whenever India was playing, an inevitable question was 'Sachin ka kitna hua?', sometimes even before asking India's score. That was the extent to which he had become popular. Most of all, people used to switch off their TVs the moment he got out, knowing that India didn't have a chance once he was gone. That was almost invariably the case.
By the late '90s, many experts around the world had started hailing Sachin as the best batsman in world cricket. By that time, he had achieved a demi-god status in India. For me, very often, Sachin's performance was more important than India's. Somehow, I could sense it on the day he was going to get a big score. Just the way he approached batting on some days was different and on those days, it didn't matter who the bowler was or what the pitch was like, they would all disappear. On other days, he would look tentative from the start and I knew he was going to be dismissed cheaply. As soon as he came in to bat, my heart would beat faster and my blood pressure possibly increased a few levels. Till the time he safely negotiated about 20 - 25 balls, I'm sure all his well wishers would be on the edge of their seats. Once he got past that, it was almost inevitable that the bowlers would pay. There was this 'heart in the mouth' feeling whenever there was an appeal against him. The day he played well, I would either not watch the TV at all or not move from the TV, depending on what I was doing when he started batting. I have always been 'hyperstitious', if I may coin a term, when Sachin bats. I just didn't want to jinx him in any way, which meant I missed some of his great innings on live TV, happy to watch it on the highlights later in the evening.
Like millions of other Indians, I have prayed for Sachin when he has had career-threatening injuries, have always defended him whenever anyone had a criticism to make of him and have always wished that every record in cricket should be his for eternity. Ponting, for a long time threatened to overtake Sachin as far as test hundreds are concerned. Luckily for all Sachin fans, Ponting's batting deteriorated post 2008-09 and he was never the same force again, while Sachin continued to be very consistent for a year or two longer. At the moment, Jacques Kallis is the only genuine threat to Sachin's record of 51 test centuries. Kallis is on 44. To get 7 more, he'd probably have to play about 30 tests more, assuming his game doesn't dip from here on. From what I saw in the IPL this year, Kallis doesn't seem to be the Kallis of old and my personal opinion is that we're going to hear of his retirement very soon. I hope that happens before he gets to 51. I don't want anyone, not even another Indian, to go past Sachin.
I started understanding and following cricket towards the mid '90s. With Sachin gone, all the stalwarts of that generation are now retired, with the exception of Kallis. Just remembering all those names makes me nostalgic - Alec Stewart, Mike Atherton, Darren Gough, Brian Lara, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Hansie Cronje, Jonty Rhodes, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younus, Inzamam ul Haq, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Akhtar, Aravinda D'Silva, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chris Cairns, Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Mark Taylor, Steve & Mark Waugh, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Glen McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee, Damien Fleming, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Saurav Ganguly.
Which brings me back to the point I made earlier in this article. With that generation of players now gone, it feels like a big part of my youth is gone forever. I watched all these stalwarts during my formative years, which is why I will always have a special place in my heart for all of them. Today, at the Wankhede, as Sachin walked off a cricket field for the last time as a player, bringing a close to a fairy tale that began almost exactly 24 years ago (Nov 15, 1989 to Nov 16 2013), a whole generation of Indians would have relived those years. A whole generation of people would have remembered how this man shouldered the expectations of a cricket crazy country for a quarter of a century, how this man played his cricket with honour, pride and dignity for all those years, never once in the news for the wrong reason, never having lost his cool, never involved in an ugly on-field incident, never showing dissent at an umpire's decision (even though he's been at the receiving end of some really bad ones in his career), but most of all, for his humility despite being the 'God' for a billion Indians and for never once having thrown a tantrum or having behaved with a superstar's attitude in public.
For me personally, Sachin embodies the values of the Indian middle class. He was not born in a privileged family. He had to work very very hard to get to that cult status and never once has he taken anything for granted. Till his last series, he has remained as passionate and as enthusiastic about cricket as a little child is about discovering new things. Lesser mortals like us will never realize what it means to achieve all that he has, to have well wishers all over the world, to have the adulation of opponents as well as his own countrymen. Above all else, Sachin to me, represented all that is good about Bombay, the city which I call my own, the city whose place cannot be taken by another in my heart, and the city where people are willing to work very very hard to make their fortunes, without shortcuts and without excuses. The way he paid his respect to the pitch before walking off the field today just summarized all that was so endearing about this man.
I will forever miss the 'Sachinnnn...Sachin' chants, the butterflies in my tummy as he walked in to bat, the anguish when he was given out wrongly, the disappointment when he didn't do well & the sense of personal achievement when he did, the sense of pride when the papers had good things to say about him and the sense of security knowing that he was still to bat. Like my friends have posted on facebook today, one question which people all over India will no longer have to ask is 'Sachin ka kitna hua?'. I liked a statement by Waqar Younis in today's papers : "They say any thing that goes up has to come down, but Sachin never came down". Most of all, I feel a sense of personal loss. It's only now that the realization has sunk in that I will never watch Sachin walk in at no. 4 for India, that the scoreboard will never show his name again, something that all of us have almost taken for granted. A hundred Virat Kohlis and Rohit Sharmas may come and go, they may achieve great success and take India to the top of the cricketing world, may shatter a lot of batting records, including some of Sachin's, but whatever anyone may achieve, Sachin will always be my favourite ever and the greatest batsman that I have ever seen, just like Shane Warne will always be the greatest spinner for me, even though Muralitharan may have 92 more wickets.
A very heart-wrenching and tearful goodbye to you Sachin. I do hope you shall continue to remain connected with Indian Cricket in some capacity or the other. Most of all, thank you for being my hero for so long and for never having let me down. I don't think there will be a greater batsman in my lifetime, for Sachin is a once-in-a-lifetime player. I'm blessed to have witnessed all your greatest innings and to have been part of a generation which drew a lot of inspiration from you. Thanks for all the wonderful memories.
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