"Who else has 93 international hundreds, who else has more than 14,000 ODI runs, who else has more than 17, 000 Test runs? Nobody. I would really like to bend down and touch his feet. If somebody is at that pedestal, I would like to do that,...What drives him on is the little boy in him. And that little boy in him just wants to play, play and play. That is the spirit that keeps him going. And then of course there is the incentive of representing your country," - Sunil Gavaskar
'The right thing to do now is not to bowl!' said Robin Jackman while asked to tell what is the right thing to do yesterday night when Cricket's superman was on,..no not rampage, not fireworks, may be his art exhibition! Such is the simplicity in his innings, not brute power, no aggressive sword-fighting that Dhoni displayed. Instead, Sachin was everything artistic -poetic with his wrist-work, hopping on one leg and flicking across the line as if in a ballet, pulled the deliveries over boundaries as if it is kite-flying. His yesterday's game was of towering simplicity and as uncomplex as his own personality. And fortunately, no heartbreak this time.
Even as fellow 'good superstar' Tiger Woods is plunging into a Shakespearean free-fall, Sachin not just seems to persist with his 2 decade passion, but only seems to be getting better. He prevailed 2 decades of nomadic life, suitcase life with room services and the accompanying lonely-at-the-top, stratospheric pedestal. One wrong word, one personal flaw, one failure and a cricket hungry nation and a byte-hungry media would pounce on him. Ask Tiger Woods. And yet, Sachin prevailed. He embraced triumph and fame with an inner-calm even as his feats send us into delirium every now and then (Look at how excited the MP Chief Minister was while shaking Sachin's hand in the awards ceremony!). Peter Roebuck said "The runs, the majesty, the thrills, do not capture his achievement. Reflect upon his circumstances and then marvel at his feat. Here is a man obliged to put on disguises so that he can move around the streets, a fellow able to drive his cars only in the dead of night for fear of creating a commotion, a father forced to take his family to Iceland on holiday, a person whose entire adult life has been lived in the eye of a storm". Should we just say he is destined?
What a way to celebrate 20 years in international cricket!? 10 International centuries in last 12 months and now he gets the second-fastest of his 46 ODI centuries with a 
record-breaking 25 4's (overtaking Jayasurya's 24), 2 months before he turns 37! And how, like a walk in a park. Just makes me wonder, how complicated it is to make it look so uncomplicated, the game and the persona. See how he hopped in the 35th over for 2 4s and how he heaved in the 41st over with a cross-bat. As he always says, he was 'enjoying his game'. Nothing else would explain those.
record-breaking 25 4's (overtaking Jayasurya's 24), 2 months before he turns 37! And how, like a walk in a park. Just makes me wonder, how complicated it is to make it look so uncomplicated, the game and the persona. See how he hopped in the 35th over for 2 4s and how he heaved in the 41st over with a cross-bat. As he always says, he was 'enjoying his game'. Nothing else would explain those.As I browse through, I hear a pundit who makes uncomplicated things complicated - the brand managers. Apparently, now he feels Sachin would be back in the 'young' market with his 200*. Only a few days before when news about Mumbai's 'Save Water' campaign surfaced, one of my friends made a rather uncharitable remark, that these are all the 'deals' Sachin can get at his age. Wanted to see his face today when Shailendra Singh, Jt. MD,Percept say on TV that Brand Sachin is good to go for next 10 years! Talk about maddening crowd, only a few months before, the likes of Airtel and Pepsi dropped Sachin as he is no more in the 'youngistan' brigade, or that's what they thought. Age, according to them, is all about DoB. It only showed the hollowness of the Branding brigade. And more glaringly now, when Sachin continues to be the little boy he was 20 years before, in pursuit of his runs. See his singles, in the 50th over! Passion, Enthusiasm, Enjoy, (batting) Paradise seem to dominate the Tendulkar lexicon even while the world around him slowly seem to find these words alien. This is all the more reason why the world seem to be astounded with each milestone of his. They are woken up by the adamant little boy in Sachin, this time by breaking of ODI's 10 second barrier with a symphony of the maiden 200* with his bludgeon blade. Sachin just did to ODIs what Jim Hines did for 100 m sprint in 1968 by breaking the 10 Sec barrier.
Pictures Courtesy: Reuters/Punit Paranjpe
My previous posts on Tendya:
