Sir Sachin Tendulkar - The Greatest Cricketer Ever

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=148134

Tendulkar’s fans have high expectations from him
One of Sachin’s die-hard fan, this writer, hopes against hope that his favouratie player never hangs up his boots. Calling him the greatest cricketer he feels Sachin’s humble behaviour off the field adds to his charming personality..

WELL KNOWN sports journo Boria Majumdar recently analysed Sachin’s greatness through his article in The Times of India. Here are some more points which were missed out in the article and which I am adding to endorse the same view.

Majumdar’s article asks: Is Sachin the greatest? It is a good analysis of Sachin Tendulkar’s greatness. A Sportsman’s greatness not only lies in his sports skill but also in his overall persona. Sachin’s cricketing skill is god-gifted but his humble and down to earth nature, attitude towards game, on and off the field character and relationship with rival team members, undisputed career, simplicity and dedication are all those aspects of his persona which bear testimony to his greatness as a cricketer.

Despite being a master of many strokes in the game he has never hesitated in sweating it out for singles and doubles for himself and for his partners, too. It could be debatable whether Sachin is the greatest cricketer of all times in context of skill. But the argument against him that opposition bowling quality in his era was lower than that in the previous one, holds no water. Even if it was, so can he be blamed for it?

Secondly, how can one say that he could not have overpowered such quality fast attack of yesteryears, had he faced it? Above all, Don Bradman himself included Sachin in his all time greatest world eleven barring Gavaskar, Richards, Steve Waugh, Lara and Ponting with whom Sachin’s greatness is being compared. Moreover, Lara wants his son to play like Sachin. Richards is ready to go to any corner of the world at his own expense to watch Sachin play. Shane Warne, Steve Waugh and Glen Macgrath consider him the best after Bradman. They all are not Sachin’s compatriots.

Offering his wicket mostly to debutants or less experienced bowlers also underlines his greatness only and not his weakness as is argued by his critics. Most of the times it is his over-enthusiasm or unforced error (silly stroke in cricketing terminology) and not bowlers’ skill that make him lose to debutants sometimes.

Some critics say that Sachin is a record maker but not a match winner. Their definition of match winner is that cricketer (especially batsman) who takes the team till final run of victory is the match winner. I suppose one who lays foundation for the victory by scoring century or handy score but unfortunately does not sustain it till the end is also a match winner.

It is well known fact that whenever India has won in any cricketing format in Sachin’s tenure, his contribution has remarkably mattered in the form of batting, bowling or fielding.

Whenever he scores a century or big score, India at least does not lose the match. In fact, when he gets out without scoring a century but healthy score of more than 50 runs, people expecting a century of him get disappointed and term this as his failure. There are many spectators like me who frankly want to switch off television when he gets out in any format of cricket.

Spectators, media and critics for God’s sake should henceforth stop debates on his form and retirement if they want to enjoy more cricket of his batting in the interest of Indian cricket. His current so-called poor form is an after effect of the frequent breaks in the continuity of his prolonged career and concentration due to injuries. Such meaningless debates certainly don’t help him empower his form but add more to his woes.

At present he needs the best fitness mantra and of course our best wishes and support to overcome these adversities. All the Best Sachin! yeh dil mange more from you!

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100117892.html

I will miss Sachin, others: Ganguly (Lead)
November 12th, 2008 - 12:53 am ICT by IANS -

Sachin TendulkarKolkata, Nov 11 (IANS) Having retired from international cricket, former captain Sourav Ganguly Tuesday said he would miss his colleagues like Sachin Tendulkar in the Indian team, but would root for them whenever he watched them on television. “I will watch them on television. I will root for them,” Ganguly told reporters at his residence, when asked how he would be in touch with other players in the team, particularly those he had groomed for the big league.

Asked about Tendulkar, with whom he formed one of the all-time best opening combinations in one-day cricket, Ganguly replied: “Sachin was very close to me. Lot of other boys in the team were also close. I will miss their company.”

Ganguly rated his debut Test, the experience of captaining India for the first time and his last Test at Nagpur, which ended Monday, as the three best moments of his glittering career.

Ganguly said he was now looking forward to some rest before deciding his future. “I have to wait and see how things unfold. Haven’t decided yet. There are lot of opportunities before me. I have to look forward,” he said at the media meet, a couple of hours after returning to his city following his retirement.

He appeared pragmatic when asked if it felt bad to be called a former cricketer. “This day was bound to come one day. Maradona, Pelle, Gavaskar, they all had to retire. One day, Tendulkar will also retire. This is part of sports.”

On the celebrations Monday after the series win against Australia at Nagpur, he said: “Oh! It was geat fun. It was fantastic. It was a night to remember for all of us.”

Ganguly said the retirement of the seniors would provide an opportunity for the youngsters to take Indian cricket forward.

Earlier, hundreds of fans mobbed Ganguly when he returned to the city.

Bouquets in hand, the cricket buffs shouted slogans eulogising the former Indian captain and constantly cheered “Dada”, “Dada” - as Ganguly is lovingly known.

They held aloft the tricolour, Ganguly’s photographs and waved posters thanking him for his contribution to the game, the country and West Bengal.

Ganguly, who arrived at the N.S.C. Bose International Airport in the evening, was received by Municipal Affairs Minister Ashok Bhattacharya and Cricket Association of Bengal joint secretaries Biswarup Dey and Arun Mitra.

http://www.geosuper.tv/articles.asp?id=428

Sachin Tendulkar: As human as everyone else and a demigod
by Syed Ahsan Ali
It was inevitable for Sachin Tendulkar to bag the record of highest run-maker in the history of Test cricket as well because he is that good, consistent and a dangerously serious run-maker.

Our whole generation has grown watching him bat session after session, match after match, opponent after opponent and he is still left with some gas in the tank.

My first introduction of the great modern sportsman was that every cricket lover around me praised his copy-book style, conventional straight bat, high elbow while playing an on-drive and his compact defence.

I was told that he is perfect and I started believing it. We friends debated about Inzamam-ul-Haq, Jacques Kallis, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh or any other modern batting genius, we found several merits and demerits, but when the debate turned towards Tendulkar the conversation ended abruptly as if he is beyond criticism or weaknesses.

That is the aura of Tendulkar. It took me a good number of years of cricket watching before I came to the conclusion that he is also as human as everyone else but a very, very gifted one.

I always find him free of blemish. He is a compact technician that hardly bears a fault or needs fine-tuning. Consistent as the sun which shines day after day, regardless of the enormity of challenges, formidability of oppositions, lethality of bowlers, severity of conditions, adversity of media, Tendulkar always finds ways to adapt and respond in the best possible way by reasserting the fact that he is the most accomplished and consistent run-maker of our era.

Muttiah Muralitharan has been keeping everyone who faces him on his toes all these long years but not Tendulkar who handles him with serenity and command. Glenn McGrath gave all great batsmen sleepless nights in the last decade or so including Lara but Tendulkar stood against him too with his usual resolve and emerged as one of the leading run-makers against the invincible Aussies in the last 20 years.

Our own Wasim Akram, who held the unofficial status of the most versatile and complete fast bowler till the day he called it off, found it tough to find any permanent solution for Tendulkar's headache-giving run-making. Most revolutionary of all, Shane Warne became a fan of his footwork and completeness of his strokeplay when he first toured India and failed to create the magic that he spelled on everyone that countered him.

The first part of his career is filled with accolades, awards, celebrations, records, centuries and what not but all that fails miserably to make him into the greatest modern-day batsman. Centuries are still coming, runs are still pouring from his bat, and records have grown into a regular service that has to happen daily but Tendulkar unanimously is not the greatest modern-day batsman, a status that looked inevitable nineteen years back.

His stature has evolved from a young maestro to an icon of one billion people but he never emerges as the finest batsman of our time. He has shoved aside persistent injuries, adapting in all kind of conditions and situations, coming out on top in all three forms of the game time and time again but what has prevented him to be named him as the greatest batsman of the current era? He is still the greatest run-maker of our time but nowhere near to being the finest.

Maybe he does not bring that swagger, panache and aggression to the crease that Viv Richards used to carry every time he walked on to the field. Perhaps he never stood up to the most adverse situations when it really counts like the way Javed Miandad, Waugh or Lara exhibited throughout their marathon careers.

His Indian origin may have played a part in making him a good opponent but not a hard one. His childhood icons were good cricketers like Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar or Bishen Singh Bedi that challenged their oppositions ferociously but never raised a fear or two in the hearts and minds of their opponents that pinched them in their graves.

His feel-good smiles, innocence and un-confrontational style of approaching international sport made zillions of admirers and lovers but not enough who love to hate him, who wants to hit you on the chin but keep their eyes below their chins when come across. He is definitely a Pete Sampras of international cricket but not a John McEnroe that heats up the whole ground with his presence. But he can't help it. That is the way Indians play their cricket all their lives. Even the current side possesses too many cordial-natured players rather than belligerent ones.

Fortunately, God has given him everything that one can wish for but unfortunately does not bestow him with the kind of personality, image or presence that keeps pumping the adrenaline through your body as long as he stays there. The kind of anticipation, buzz and smell of dynamite one can sense when Kevin Pietersen is around or when Andrew Flintoff holds the ball in his hand, or Warne set his fields or when Viv swirled his bat like a toothpick or when Miandad counted fielders in the ring was not his forte. That remains absent throughout Tendulkar's outstanding career which would be mentioned as one of the few greatest cricketing careers if not the greatest career ever in the game's history.

It is fortunate to witness something as phenomenal and as prolific as Tendulkar has been all these years. As all good things come to an end, he would be too but not before making the game far more respectable, admirable and enviable. The Indians consider him god but I would call him a demigod as he is not free of blemishes and weaknesses.

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/content...ds/283512.html

One-Day Internationals - Highest overall partnership runs by a pair

Partners Span Inns NO Runs High Ave 100 50
SC Ganguly, SR Tendulkar (India) 1992-2007 176 3 8227 258 47.55 26 29

R Dravid, SR Tendulkar (India) 1996-2007 95 5 3927 331 43.63 11 12

V Sehwag, SR Tendulkar (India) 2001-2008 83 2 3073 182 37.93 10 11

M Azharuddin, SR Tendulkar (India) 1989-2000 77 6 3514 175 49.49 8 19

26 Hundreds and 29 fifty partnerships between ganguly and tendulkar

:shock: :clap:

http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/in...1&sectionid=41


Farewell, comrades - Sachin Tendulkar
November 7, 2008
It has not sunk in yet but in a few days time, I know it will. At the end of the series against Australia this week, India will find itself without two of its most distinguished cricketers.

Two of my oldest teammates won’t be part of my dressing room any more. Anil Kumble came to me during the warm-ups on the last day of the Delhi Test and told me about his decision to quit. I didn’t know what to do; he has been part of my cricket since 1990.

Sourav Ganguly had announced his decision to go in the dressing room in Bangalore and I was surprised about it as we had never had any discussion of the sort. There is always a sadness about retirements of teammates with whom you have played for so long. But I believe the individual knows best about the state of his mind and his body and so the decision to retire should be respected.

No two cricketers are alike, no two people are and so it is with Anil and Sourav. You have to respect and accept difference and acknowledge and appreciate the varied talents and skills that different players bring into a dressing room.

Persistence and consistency was Anil’s strength and he reinvented himself all the time. Every couple of seasons he came up with a few new deliveries and I saw how much he pushed his body to the limit all the time. He put his body on the line for cricket for so long. In any list of India’s greatest cricketers, he will feature right at the top, bracketed alongside giants like Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.

When we came out to field in the second innings in Delhi, I went up to Anil and took his cap to give it to the umpire. It is something I used to do between overs, not all the time, but when we needed something to happen, to change our luck. I would run from the other end of the ground to take his cap to give to the umpire. It had started in 1999 at the Kotla when he took 10 wickets against Pakistan and I always thought it worked from then on.

So this time, I said “Kumble, this has been special to me, so let me do this for the last time.” After the game, I told Anil that it had been an honour for me to have played cricket in the same era. And it was an era where we achieved some new landmarks for the team and Sourav was part of the best of those days.

Sourav had a great understanding of his game, of the game as a whole and I have seen very few batsman who are able to set bowlers up as well as he did.

We opened the innings for more than 100 ODIs and I have seen him get bowlers to bowl where he wanted them to. We had a very good rapport together and I could often tell from his footwork what he was going to do and vice versa. He was a masterful constructor of an innings and had a superb sense of how and when to accelerate.

I remember us batting in bad light in the Headingley Test in 2002 because we needed quick runs in very little time to set up a target. The bowlers were finding it difficult and we kept saying we had no problem with the light because the momentum was with us.

Finally, the umpires said they could not see the ball so they were stopping the game. Sourav and I protested, said the light was fine, we kept pushing it, but had to go eventually and walked off laughing. We won that Test and levelled the series. You tend to remember those kind of days.

Whenever I’m asked about how much India will miss Anil I remember what he meant to me when I was a captain. If something was happening, I would give the ball to Anil. If nothing was happening, I would give the ball to Anil. If you needed to contain runs, you give the ball to Anil. If you needed to attack, you give the ball to Anil. India will miss him every day and at all times.

Sourav has played for more than 10 years and we will miss his presence in the dressing room. I don’t think there is any cricketer who has not gone through a bad patch and so did Sourav, but he showed tremendous grit and determination to come back. As much cricket as I’ve played with him and seen him play, this period is the best I’ve seen him bat. He will go out with his head high.

I have shared a lot with them, good and bad days in cricket, happy memories on and off the field. Delhi was particularly poignant as everything happened so quickly. After Anil addressed us all at tea, I said a few words about him too and I don’t think there were too many dry eyes in that room.

When I’m asked about my most memorable moment with Sourav, there have been many but one that stays with me for some reason is flooding his room with water during our under-15 days. He had been sleeping and when he got up he had no idea what was going on. I don’t think I will ever forget the sight of his face. Of course, I’d made sure all his bats and pads were safely off the ground first, so no one could say I wasn’t considerate.

I never played pranks on Anil though, he was more of a serious person and I found that there were two personalities to him. Off the field he is calm and composed. On the field he was in control, but was very, very aggressive. You could tell he wanted to make batsmen’s life hell and send them back to where they had come from.

This will be a new phase for both Anil and Sourav and my best wishes are with them. For so long, one guy thought only about how to take wickets and win matches and the other about how to score runs and win matches. There will be other things they want to do now but I know that the heart will always be with cricket. It has been a joy to play alongside them, to share the dressing room with them and to win for India.

Anil and Sourav were two very different cricketers and very different individuals. But for Indian cricket, they are both true heroes, true inspirations for the next generation.

(As told to Sharda Ugra)

—The writer is the highest run-scorer in international cricket

Straight from the horse's mouth.

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/indv...ry/377819.html

Sachin Tendulkar - 8.5
Sachin Tendulkar began the series on the verge of becoming the highest run-scorer in Test cricket and, during the course of achieving the landmark, he made important contributions when his team was vulnerable. His gritty 49 in the final innings in Bangalore helped India bat out the final day to save the Test; his 88 in Mohali came after three wickets had fallen for 17 runs; his 68 in Delhi helped India recover from 27 for 2; and his 109 in Nagpur consolidated the innings after a top-order wobble. He was as reliable as ever in the middle-order and was the second highest run-scorer of the series with 396 runs at an average of 57.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajithfederer

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/indv...ry/377819.html

Sachin Tendulkar - 8.5
Sachin Tendulkar began the series on the verge of becoming the highest run-scorer in Test cricket and, during the course of achieving the landmark, he made important contributions when his team was vulnerable. His gritty 49 in the final innings in Bangalore helped India bat out the final day to save the Test; his 88 in Mohali came after three wickets had fallen for 17 runs; his 68 in Delhi helped India recover from 27 for 2; and his 109 in Nagpur consolidated the innings after a top-order wobble. He was as reliable as ever in the middle-order and was the second highest run-scorer of the series with 396 runs at an average of 57.

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Idhellam armchair critics kannulaiye padaathu :banghead: :banghead:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajithfederer

One-Day Internationals - Highest overall partnership runs by a pair

Partners Span Inns NO Runs High Ave 100 50
SC Ganguly, SR Tendulkar (India) 1992-2007 176 3 8227 258 47.55 26 29

26 Hundreds and 29 fifty partnerships between ganguly and tendulkar

:shock: :clap:

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:notworthy::notworthy::notworthy:
Cricket world's best pair... :D :notworthy:

Tendulkar made a comment the other day that he would miss speaking Bengali in the Indian team now. Your comments?

Sourav:I’ll miss him. I will miss the players, the dressing room atmosphere and everything else. I’ve shared a special relationship with Sachin. I’ve seen him from the under-15 grade. He has been a very special player for India.