ஒரு நாள் கிரிக்கட்டின் மேன்மையான வரலாறு நின்றுபோனது இன்றொடு. நடந்த முடிந்த கைதட்டிய, நிம்மதி அடைந்த, ஆரவாரம் செய்த, ஆர்ப்பரித்த, பெருமைப்பட்ட , கொண்டாடிய, வியந்து போன தருணங்களை அசை போட்டுக்கொண்டே எஞ்சி வரும் நாட்களை கழிப்போம்.
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ஒரு நாள் கிரிக்கட்டின் மேன்மையான வரலாறு நின்றுபோனது இன்றொடு. நடந்த முடிந்த கைதட்டிய, நிம்மதி அடைந்த, ஆரவாரம் செய்த, ஆர்ப்பரித்த, பெருமைப்பட்ட , கொண்டாடிய, வியந்து போன தருணங்களை அசை போட்டுக்கொண்டே எஞ்சி வரும் நாட்களை கழிப்போம்.
venki,
Ur last sentence made me so emotional.. :(
:( Nalla irungada (whoever criticized Sachin in the last few years and came after him)!!!!!!!!
I knew this was coming. Don't know what else to say :|
RIP ODI cricket.
Growing up with Sachin
How Tendulkar helped a generation of Indians make sense of their lives
Sachin Tendulkar has retired from one-dayers.
Does this mean anything to you?
Did you feel numb on Sunday morning? Or maybe it was Saturday night in your part of the world. Did the various stages of your life flash in your head, as they are supposed to in the instant before you die?
Do you remember one-dayers 23 years ago? Travel back in time. What do you see? Red leather balls, players in whites and some one-dayers in England with umpires stopping play for tea.
What else do you see? Doordarshan - the feed hanging this moment, back live the next, your grainy screen filled with men who sport stubbles and bushy moustaches, the camera facing the batsman one over and the bowler the next, commentators screaming "that's hit up in the air".
Gradually the texture changes. Coloured clothing and floodlit games become commonplace, fielding restrictions alter the definitions of a "safe total", Duckworth and Lewis appear, so do Powerplays, Supersubs and Super Overs. Pinch-hitters, a novelty for a few years, lose their sheen. Now everyone must pinch, everyone must hit.
Tendulkar has seen it all. Sometimes he has initiated the change, on other occasions he has adapted. A master of the game in the mid '90s, a master in 2011. The one constant in a wildly changing format. He was around when one-dayers were blooming, he was also around when they were allegedly dying.
You have been around too. Are you a kid from the '80s? Or the '90s? Or are you a straddler, part of the Tendulkar generation that has one feet in both decades?
Ah, you stand on the threshold. You have experienced Doordarshan before leaping to the riches of satellite, you have seen Shah Rukh Khan as a fauji on TV before he soared onto the silver screen, you know of life before the internet but are quick to embrace the wonders of technology, you have watched monochrome but are a child of the colour TV age.
What else do you see?
Tendulkar in a white helmet, his white shirt unbuttoned to his thorax, blitzing Abdul Qadir in an exhibition game in Peshawar. Until that point cricket is merely a fuzzy idea. Tendulkar gives it shape, adds meaning, wraps it in colourful paper and winds a ribbon around the packing. He makes you understand the game's place in your life, teaches you its significance.
You grapple, trying to swerve banana out-swingers with a tennis ball. Standing in front of a mirror, you imagine the opposition needing six off the last over. The stadium is a cauldron. A hundred thousand fill the stands. Can you restrict the batsmen?
One morning in 1994, when large parts of India slept, you awake to life and freedom. What a rebellion at Auckland. Eighty-two off 49 balls. A cameo that unshackles the mind. The greatest one-day innings you have seen. Can anyone better this?
You are carried along the Tendulkar slipstream. When he is stumped off Mark Waugh, after illuminating the Mumbai sky, you sense the game will slip away. It does. A few days later his hundred against Sri Lanka in Delhi ends in defeat - the first Tendulkar ton in vain. You hope it's an aberration. You wish.
You observe his every move. In 1996, when he fires a swinging yorker to dismiss Saqlain in Sharjah and sends him off with an emphatic "f**k off", you blush. Four years later your vocabulary has expanded. When he mouths off Glenn McGrath in the Champions Trophy in Nairobi, you puff your chest, as if vindicated.
It's 1998, a time for decisions. Academics or sports? Arts or science? Biology or computers? To meet her or to continue with phone conversations? To buy a copy of Debonair or to take a sneak-peek? These are the burning questions that occupy you.
Do they matter? Tendulkar is dismantling Fleming, Warne and Kasprowicz in Sharjah. A desert storm, a birthday hundred and a ballistic Tony Greig. A straight six off Warne when he starts around the wicket. Another straight six off Kasprowicz. "Whaddaplayaa," screeches Greig. It imprints itself in your head.
In your inconsequential gully matches you bat with an amped-up ferocity. You nod to tell the bowler you are ready, you hold your pose during the follow-through, you reverse-sweep and attempt straight-bat paddles. You pump your fist when Tendulkar manhandles Henry Olonga in Sharjah.
You start college. You are ragged, often with little imagination. Some of the courses don't interest you. Many of your classmates speak about things you have never heard of, in languages you are not fluent in.
You are sipping tea in the canteen when someone switches on a television set. India are playing Namibia in the World Cup. You find your bearings. This is a familiar world. Tendulkar is nearing a century. This is your comfort zone. The next 10 days are some of the most joyous of your life. That six off Caddick, those fours of Akram and Shoaib ... you feel you have turned a corner.
You hate your job. You begin to care for little other than your pay-cheque. This is not what you expected when you graduated. You assumed this job would be interesting. How wrong you were. Tendulkar is still at it, obsessed with his craft. Despite a lean patch, he says he must go on. He knows no other way.
You are engaged, then married. Life gets busier: an apartment, a car, daily chores. Tendulkar is brutalising Brett Lee in Sydney. An uppish cover drive, then a bullet past the bowler. Lee offers an angelic smile, Tendulkar stands still, zen-like, unconcerned about the past or the future, immersed in the present.
You switch jobs. You like your new role but your boss sucks. He is a slave-driver. You take sly peeks at a live scorecard tab that is open at your desktop as India chase Australia's 351 at Hyderabad. Tendulkar is flying but there is no TV. You wish you could get back home but what if he gets out when you are on your way? Would you be able to forgive yourself? India lose. You call out sick the next day.
You relocate abroad. Cricket matches are on a different time zone. You scavenge illegal internet streams, slap your head when the feed hangs. You are reminded of your days of watching Doordarshan. The sun is yet to rise outside your apartment, and Tendulkar is batting in the 190s against South Africa in Gwalior. Cricinfo is hanging. Cricinfo didn't even exist when Tendulkar started. Your twitter feed is on valium. He has reached 200.
You watch every ball of India's World Cup campaign. How could you not? A hundred in Bangalore, a hundred in Nagpur. You suffer palpitations in Mohali. Then the eruption in Mumbai. Kohli raises him aloft and talks of Tendulkar's burden. He speaks for you. He understands how you feel. There are tears everywhere, including on your cheeks.
Here's John Steinbeck in Cannery Row:
Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical and aesthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American Nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than solar system of of stars ... Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few of them were born in them ...
You can apply the same to your generation. To understand us is to take into account the moral, physical and aesthetic effect of Tendulkar. To feel your pain, when he retires from a format he made his own, is to know what it means to grow up with him.
You are the lucky ones. Cherish the memories. He was, and will remain, your Model T.
___________________
Out of all the articles, this one stands out as the best. Comes very close to what most of us experienced.
Know it would be blasphemous to say. But I would trade Sachin, the test batsmen to watch him play ODIs. The guy was a freak in this format and will always be the best ODI bat ever ( sorry Sir Viv). And I am not too sure as to whether people completely understood or appreciated this.
+1 (except Sir Viv comment).. ithai naan munnadiye sollirukken... if sachin wants to retire from one format, it should be Tests rather than ODIs.. early 90's la cricket paaka aarambichavangalukku Sachin illatha ODI team illannu puriyum...Quote:
Originally Posted by Arvind Srinivasan
also, his record in tests can be broken in future but not the ODIs.. he should have continued playing ODIs (don't forget the break he took in many ODI series in the last 2-3 years) and reach 20K...
Arise Sachin Tendulkar. The cricketer and the man
It was on the Proteas team bus that I read about Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from ODI cricket. I found myself reflecting on my three years of working with him. To me, the opportunity was a privilege. So I thought I’d share some of my reflection here.
When I addressed the Indian cricket team for the first time (in 2008), I started by explaining that I did not see them as ‘cricketers’, but as human beings, each with many facets. Being a talented cricketer is only a part of who they are. They may also be someone’s brother, son, friend, parent or partner, and each is a unique emotional, intellectual and spiritual being. I reminded them that they were born with their talent, call it God-given, which is not an achievement but a blessing. The achievement comes when they tirelessly study, train and practice to develop that talent.
Between 2008-2011 I watched Sachin epitomize developing a talent. He paid more attention to and invested more time into practicing his batting than any other player. He never once cut a corner in his preparation for a game, making sure he attended to every detail. After nearly two decades in the international game he had earned the right stay at the hotel and rest while some of his teammates attended our trademark ‘optional’ practices. Yet he never did. Not a week went by where any player, youngsters included, hit more balls in practice. Add this attention to detail and impeccable work ethic to his extraordinary God-given talent, and it doesn’t take much to figure out why he is so successful.
As mentioned, being an outstanding cricketer is a part, but not all, of the man.
When someone becomes a top class athlete, it does not mean they automatically become a special human. Each one starts out as an ordinary person who happens to be blessed with an extraordinary talent. To become a special person requires that they intentionally develop and mature themselves as a person just as they would work on mastering their profession.
It is fairly common that a cricketer (or any sportsmen, businessmen, politician) who achieves success is lured into falsely viewing himself as a special person, believing he is more important than others by virtue of the fact he can hit a cricket ball more sweetly, and because others may treat him as more special. In India, the amount of adulation, admiration and hero-worship that is lavished on national cricketers poses a huge challenge to their humility. None have been hero-worshipped and admired as Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He is more worshipped than some of the Hindu Gods. A priest at an ODI once brandished a banner saying, “Sorry God, but I love Sachin more than you.”
With his unassailable statistics and virtual deification, Sachin has earned the right to believe and act like he is special. But he does not. And it is this characteristic that impressed me at least as much as the Little Master’s statistics, milestones and awe-inspiring performances.
Despite his God-like status, in a country that sometimes overvalues power and status, Sachin exudes a humble, feet-on-the-ground approach. Early in my tenure with the team and during a one-on-one session with him, he spoke of a mantra that he lives by and that his father had passed to him as a young man. He granted me permission to share it.
He told me that, “who I am as a person, my nature is permanent, my results on the field are temporary – they will go up and go down. It is more important that I am consistent as a person, this I can control, my results I cannot”. He added that, “people will criticise me for my results, and will soon forget them, but they will always remember the impact I have on them as a person. This will last forever.”
And so the most mobbed, harassed, pestered and interrupted person in India, rather than expecting kingly treatment from others, is constantly mindful of treating others well and respectfully. During one tour I was entering a hotel elevator with Sachin to depart for a match. A very nervous mom asked if she could take a picture of him with her two young children. We risked being late for the bus, but Sachin obliged, letting the elevator go without him. The nervous mom was shaking so much she couldn’t get the camera to work. I was about to help Sachin out by rushing him along, when he turned to me and said, ‘Pads won’t you help her with the camera, help her to get a nice picture.’ Most who know him have an abundance of similar stories.
He shares his professionalism and teaches respect. During a net practice, a young Ishant Sharma kicked the ball in frustration after a poorly executed delivery. Sachin calmly went over, picked the ball up and returned it to Ishant, telling him in gentle manner, “it is because of this ball that you have what you have got in life, without this ball you have nothing. Treat it with the respect it is due.”
Fast forward to a meeting during India’s triumphant 2011 ICC World Cup campaign. We’re discussing cricket and life, and some of the senior players are asked to share the most significant event in their careers. Sachin’s significant event left me with a lump in my throat.
It happened soon after he was selected to play for India as a 16-year-old, and had returned to his Ranji Trophy team. A 16 year-old friend and teammate approached him and said ‘I speak on behalf of your friends. We know that you are a better cricketer than us, but since you were selected to play for India, you have been acting as if you are a better person than us. We don’t think it is a good thing for you to do.” Sachin marked this comment as one of the most significant events of his career, helping him to realize at a very young age that being a good cricketer did not mean he was a special person. He continues to live this lesson. As a veteran of over 22 years of international cricket, he treats junior teammates as fellow men, including them in conversations, showing an interest in their well-being, asking them questions and helping them with their game.
When someone with an extraordinary God-given talent adds to it an incredibly professional, detailed and tirelessly high work ethic, brilliance arises. The world has known just one Einstein, Mozart, van Gogh, Michael Jackson and Tendulkar. When someone with brilliance adds strength of character, humility, respectfulness to being an all-round good person, then the world is blessed with not just sporting greatness, but true greatness. Arise Sachin Tendulkar.
http://paddyupton.com/newsletter/ari...r-and-the-man/
Intha aalaya ya neenga retire aaga vecheenga....Indian cricket ini mella saavattum...Reportedly the guy spent an entire day crying when the news was announced...Really feel so bad for him....Quote:
SACHINSPEAK: During a net practice, a young Ishant Sharma kicked the ball in frustration after a poorly executed delivery. Sachin calmly went over, picked the ball up and returned it to Ishant, telling him in gentle manner, “it is because of this ball that you have what you have got in life, without this ball you have nothing. Treat it with the respect it is due.” From a piece on Sachin Tendulkar by Paddy Upton, who was India's mental conditioning coach from 2008-11.