Sachin's Hyderabad heartbreak and about what ails his haters!

"I have seen god, he bats at no.4 for India" - Mathew Hayden

"Sachin is a genius. I'm a mere mortal"- Brian Charles Lara

“India me aap PrimeMinister ko ek Baar Katghare me khada kar sakte hain..Par Sachin Tendulkar par Ungli nahi utha Sakte.. " - Navjot Singh Sidhu on TV

"Sachin cannot cheat. He is to cricket what (Mahatma) Gandhiji was to politics. It's clear discrimination. " - NKP Salve, former Union Minister when Sachin was accused of ball tampering

"The joy he brings to the millions of his countrymen, the grace with which he handles all the adulation and the expectations and his innate humility - all make for a one-in-a-billion individual" - Glen McGrath

"Nothing bad can happen to us if we're on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it." - Hashim Amla, the South African batsman, reassures himself as he boards a flight.

"To Sachin, the man we all want to be" - Andrew Symonds wrote on an Aussie t-shirt he autographed specially for Sachin.

“Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don't know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their TV sets and switch off their lives." - BBC on Sachin

"We did not lose to a team called India...we lost to a man called Sachin." - Mark Taylor, during the test match in Chennai (1997)

"The more I see of him the more confused I'm getting to which is his best knock." - M. L.Jaisimha

"He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also" - Waqar Younis

"On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!! "- Peter Roebuck (Aussie sportswriter)

Sachin, the phenomenon is beyond expression or words for me. It has hence been difficult to blog about him and so I never did. After a real long time, I was engrossed in a cricket match yesterday. Did someone say 50 over cricket is dead? Would a 20-20 for all its hype ever produce this kind of epic? I wondered for few minutes if it is 2009 or 1999? 3 days after Ricky ponting said "We've kept Sachin in check so far. His scoring rate hasn't been too extravagant'', Sachin, the batman shrugged off the mentor-anchor role he has assumed lately and went on to be the marauder he was, clobbering 9 4s and 4 massive 6s. Sadly, India as a team too resembled that of the 90s. While Sachin mounted a great challenge, almost all else run away from the field. So, if Australia's batting line-up threw up scores of 112, 93, 45, 57, 31 with all scores above 100% strike-rate,Team India petered off with 175,59,38,23. If in Chennai in 1998-99, Sachin left the last three wickets 17 to get; yesterday he left them 19 off 17 when he fell for deceptive change of pace. Like it happened then, his weak-hearted teammates blew it up once again. One batsman doesn't know when to run, the other doesn't know how to run and of course the captain is boorish enough not to acknowledge Sachin's extraordinary innings in the awards ceremony.While Ponting marvelled Sachin "hit almost every ball in the middle of the bat" and that it is "one of the great one-day innings that I've seen", all our Dhoni said, as if suffering from constipation, was that the innings was "a pleasure" to watch. We are still in the 90s dude - the Azhar days, nothing really changed! Not even Sachin's critics who I rather dub as 'I hate Sachin' brigade. I knew they would come once India lost yesterday night. And true to it, I see the same brigade in the papers and Internet today. Despite worldwide recognition for undiluted talent, work ethic and sincerity (sample at the top of this post), this brigade persists. This post is an attempt to understand this brigade.

As we soak in all the front-foot pulls, straight drives, cover drives, late glances, paddle sweeps and the subsequent laurels from the Aussies, it amazes me on how after 20 long years, 435 one-dayers we still want Sachin the opener to run his ass off and finish the game for us in the 50th over while the other 10 will continue to 'learn' basics of running between wickets, holding on to straight catches and wicket-keeping playing international cricket. Some even whine that he 'chokes'!! Coming in to open, scoring the highest by any batsman against

Australia, (in fact his ninth ODI hundred against them, the most by any player against a single team) and getting dismissed only in 48th over with a meagre 19 runs to score is still 'choking' for the "I hate Sachin" brigade. I have seen many of this brigade over the years and while it puzzled me earlier in the golden 90s as to why someone would criticize Sachin, the sole performer, now it is more entertaining as I seem to get why this happens. All accusations of this brigade make for good laughs. More than Sachin or his game, these accusations reveal more about the guys who fling them. Some psychology here.

Somehow many from this brigade can not comprehend Sachin, his perfection, lack of controversies or weaknesses, a near perfect personal life. They simply hate his machine-like consistency and frustrate over the absence of chinks in his armour. He is too good to be so perfect so they suppose something must be sinister. Maybe they dare try comparing their own lives with his! So all they try doing is knitpick and in the process give us outrageous fun with their bizarre and preposterous takes on the little master. Here comes one. One of my friends once thundered Laxman was the better batsman than Sachin, I was all ears to know the technicality I missed. He reasoned that Sachin didn't have a 281 type innings! I was enlightened, not about anything but my friend. Some others argued for the piggyback rungetter Dravid. That was atrocious. Did Sachin ever show so much promise in wearing down his own teammates with some abysmal strike-rate or lack of initiative? Dravid is, of course, in a league of good test batsmen but never did he show the dynamism to attack and win irrespective of his statistics. That Sachin's contribution to Indian cricket's victories is unrivalled is a fact unfathomable to these. Some others creatively talk about how Sachin scores for himself and not for the team. I never quite understood this. Were not those countless 100s he scored considered in team scores? Yet another from the brigade charges, now this is the cherry on the ball, that Sachin fixes and makes money loosing. Now if they care to know how much he made by a 'winning' career over 2 decades, they would know money would no more be an incentive for him! So much for the ignorance of our 'seasoned' commentators from this brigade. Some others try to fudge the statistics to prove something about scores and averages. They conviniently overlook the invaluable initiative Sachin takes and the confidence and the fighting spirit he inspires in the ranks while playing. Even if it were a 20 or 30 runs sachin-style, look at the morale shift it produces for the team. That is precisely why Team India feels bogged down when they lose his wicket.

These harebrained criticisms are but natural offshoots from half-literate Indians who neither understand sporting spirit nor Cricket in its enterity. I doubt if most of them ever held a bat to a ball. How else could they be so mean towards someone who toils all through the match only to loose by an agonizing few inches. A real sports fan would understand his heartbreak, his pain in Hyderabad, the one of the many he faced in his career. I sincerely hope the folks in this brigade open their eyes, get real, not for Sachin's sake but for their own sake. Sachin is anyway a legend, and whether they like it or not, their kids and grand kids will read it that way in their school texts a few years from now. Instead these 'critics' should open their eyes for all beauty and earnestness around instead of wallowing in endless cynicism about everything and everyone seemingly perfect. They should accept their own frailties and appreciate Sachin's character, courage and conviction. Let them be reassured that it is perfectly okay to be imperfect. That is how they can start enjoying their own lives and spare us from their bizarre fun. Amen.

Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images