Sachin - The Unflappable Juggernaut

by Siddharth Raman

The Indian juggernaut in test cricket continued this week with the latest addition to the casualty list being New Zealand. Four days of absorbing test cricket culminated in an Indian victory in land of the black caps after more than three decades. The most absorbing and entertaining days of cricket were played on the second and third day of the match. And quite ironically one man had a significant role to play on both days – Sachin Tendulkar.

sachin looks back

On the second day , after New Zealand was restricted to a score below three hundred the Indian batsmen adopted a cautious approach, scoring two hundred and forty nine runs. Sachin Tendulkar scored seventy of those remaining unbeaten and his innings could easily be viewed in two parts – on either side of the second new ball being taken. Before the second new ball was taken Tendulkar was more in consolidation mode and one could make out he wanted to be out there for a long time. Maybe the thoughts of India’s last tour to New Zealand and also his previous overseas test tour (Sri Lanka August 2008) were at the back of his mind – he averaged 25 and 15 in the test series on those tours respectively. Once the new ball was taken there was a metamorphosis from the consolidator to the attacking batsman we are accustomed to. Mind you there were no ostensibly aggressive strokes; there were strokes which relied only on pure timing and placement. This phase of play came towards then end of the second day and it was just a teaser for what was in store in the next day’s play.

The agenda for the Indian batsmen on day three was quite obvious from the outset. They had achieved their goal on day two and now was the time to go for the kill. Tendulkar picked up seamlessly from he left off on day two. The boundaries he scored through the off side were a visual treat – punches of the back foot, spanking drives on the front foot, and square drives of both the front and back foot. Tendulkar was in the proverbial ‘zone’ – he could at times even play shots based on his intuition as to where the ball was going to pitch. This of course was not the first time that he was in the zone but the stroke play on display and also the stamina to stay at the crease for nearly four hundred minutes would normally be attributed to a man in his early twenties. Very rarely would we see someone who is pushing thirty six combined with the fact that he has played international cricket for nearly two decades still want to work on improving his game and always trying to re invent himself to adapt to the changing times. Even in his innings of 160 we got see how he modifies his game to create as many scoring opportunities as possible.

Generally when a batsman has to deal with the ball coming into his rib cage his options are to defend the delivery or if possible let it pass to the keeper. But Tendulkar came up with a third alternative (something which geniuses often do) – bend a little and guide the ball over the slip cordon and get four runs to your name! This shot was added to his repertoire during the tour of Australia last year and was out on display again. Irrespective of the bowler the outcome is always the same. The point being that here is a batsman who is willing to modify his game even after being revered as arguably the greatest willow wielding anthrop. He has played with three generations of Indian cricketers – starting with Kapil Dev , Krish Srikanth , Vengsarkar, Azharrudin then moving on to the next generation of Ganguly, Dravid ,Laxman, and finally now with Dhoni, Sehwag, Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh. Cricketers who at one time were considered his peers have retired from the game long ago and moved on to different avenues. But Tendulkar’s hunger for performing and passion for the gentleman’s game has kept him going for all these years and it doesn’t look like it is going to die down in the near future.

If someone were to ask how much more time would we want to see this batting Pavarotti on song – a majority would say forever!

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