Is Sachin Tendulkar Hurting from Missing WI Tour or from Burden of 100th 100?

What’s eating Gilbert Grape? Perhaps a similar question could be asked of Sachin Tendulkar who has not seemed himself thus far on the Indian tour of England. It is not only hurting expectations but more importantly, hurting India’s image as well as standing in international cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar

By that contention, one would think that Indian cricket was dependent on Sachin Tendulkar alone. However, that is not quite the case anymore although the presence of the prolific run maker even at the ripe age of thirty-eight still makes the team far more formidable than the best of batting line ups put together.

Significantly, it is Tendulkar’s wealth of experience combined with the rich vein of form that he has been over the past two years in particular that have raised tremendous expectations of the maestro. Having said that, it would also be fair to assess that perhaps everyone who enjoys the romance of cricket perhaps got ahead in heightened anticipation of Tendulkar’s 100th 100 in international cricket to somehow divorce the idea of Tendulkar still having to be a part of the team that had a point to prove that their no.1 Test status was no fluke.

Those expectations were clearly becoming too much even for the 2000th Test celebrations at Lord’s. The euphoric levels were so intoxicating that one would be forgiven for assuming that all Tendulkar had to do was walk onto the cricket field and the 100th international century would magically surface. But the beauty about waiting for that milestone, and the waiting has been on since Tendulkar almost achieved it against Pakistan only to miss it by fifteen runs in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 semi final, was in the fact that there is a pivotal lesson that even the best in the business need to put in their time, every time, before they can reap the rewards of the realization of their goals.

Where viral infection affected Tendulkar during Lord’s, he seemed out of his element in the Trent Bridge Test and his dismissal in the first innings of the third Test at Edgbaston, Birmingham only suggests that he has not quite found the rhythm of the music that is his sublime batting when in full flow.

It seems quite uncharacteristic given that Tendulkar has reset his goals in the past two years with Gary Kirsten more of a confidante than the Indian coach, that the batting maestro would take so long. While Sachin Tendulkar was preparing for the important tour in England by practicing at Lord’s, there is something to be said for the fact that no amount of net sessions can replicate real match situations which also brings into question whether it was wise on Tendulkar’s part to skip the tour of the West Indies in order to spend time with family.

There is a position of authority that will be debated in the above stated opinion and indeed Tendulkar would know what works best for him. But sometimes the best laid plans can go awry. Combined with expectations of such gargantuan nature, the pressure can get complicated, even for one who has set the bar so high that it will take some doing before the Mt. Everest is breached again.