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Tendulkar: The “Dil Maange More” list -1

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Although Sachin has completed 20 years in international cricket, I hope and believe he still has a few more left and this is not quite the time to write summaries of his career. There are many records that he has established or broken already. But it makes me wonder how people can say “he has broken all batting records”, as clearly there are many obvious ones that he is yet to break or achieve. So instead of going over his stats so far I am trying to highlight the things we fans want him to do.

There is a reason for that. Tendulkar had a lean patch starting somewhere in 2004 that lasted till the World Cup of 2007. He did score a few hundreds during this time but never looked like the Tendulkar we knew. People, even players who are supposed to know about lean patches, started writing Tendulkar off. But then he came back to form in the tour of Ireland and England of 2007. Since then mostly he has been in great touch and has been even doing things he hasn’t done much before - like staying unbeaten in a big chase of fourth innings to win India a match, like he did in December 2008 against England at Chennai. So what fun it would be if he starts breaking those other records that are not in his list yet!

The record that comes to mind immediately is a test triple hundred! But before we go there, Tendulkar definitely has had many attacking innings before - I am listing three that come to my mind and I chose these three because they represent three different match situations:

  • Against South Africa at Bloemfontein, 2000 - India were 68/4 when Tendulkar and debutant Sehwag came together for a 220 run partnership in just 47 overs. Tendulkar scored 155 off just 184 balls. Many teams have exploited such situations to win games, but India wasn’t quite there yet there then. There was hardly any other substantial score from anybody else in both the innings and our bowling’s inability to restrict South Africa prevented India from winning or saving the game. Here is the YouTube link.
  • Against Australia at Chennai, 1998 - India had conceded a lead in the first innings which was already wiped out when Tendulkar came to bat in second innings. But the match was still open and Warne’s reputation was still intact. Some 60 overs later Warne had been taken for 122 runs and India set a “historical” target of 348 runs to Australia (in the tied test of 1987 Australia had set India the same target at Chennai) and India won the match.
  • Against England at Leeds, 2002 - Tendulkar came to bat at a healthy 185/2 but what was more important was it 74 overs were alredy bowled in which Bangar and Dravid had seen through the most dangerous period of the match. Then Tendulkar and Ganguly put together a 249 run stand in just 60 overs with both going on total attack in the later part of that partnership. India scored 628 and won the game as well. Here is the YouTube link.

    So there are many matches where Tendulkar has played attacking but a huge double/triple hundred while playing like that has been missing. I know there are exceptions, but most of Tendulkar’s great centuries are scores around 150. As far as I remember none of his double centuries were very interesting to watch. He hasn’t scored even a big attacking double century yet.

    A triple hundred itself doesn’t seem to be a measure of greatness, but many great batsmen of the current generation have them - Sehwag, (DPMD) Jayawardene, Jayasuriya, Gayle, Younis Khan. Then there are Kallis, Ponting, Dravid, Mohammand Yusuf, Graeme Smith, Laxman who have none.

    I guess in general terms Tendulkar hasn’t had a huge attacking innings and it will be fantastic to see him do that!

    • Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Lara, Dhoni, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Sehwag, Ponting, Ireland, Laxman | No Comments »

    Premier test rivarly

    Monday, October 20th, 2008

    What a rivalry! If we count since the start of 2000 (just after the time when Australia had started their first streak of 16 wins in a row), Australia has lost only 12 matches, 6 of them are against India! If we don’t count the dead rubber games the lost games are 7 (which is an unbelievable record). Of those five are against India (Kolkata, Chennai in 2001, Adelaide in 2003, Perth earlier this year and now in Mohali). The loss at Mumbai in 2004 was after they had already won the series. The two other real losses of Australia were in the Ashes 2005 against England.

    In Australia in the same duration, they have lost only 3 games, two of which were lost when the series was still open - both were against India. The third one was the Sydney dead rubber against England in 2003.

    Compare this to 14 wins against 4 losses in Ashes for Australia, only two of which were when the series was still open, and it’s easier to decide which contest is the premier one in test cricket in this decade. And for those who still like to bring up the McGrath-Warne factor from time to time, India won the 2001 home series against Australia by beating them in the matches when these two played. England’s wins at Birmingham and Nottingham were when McGrath didn’t play. We won’t count Mumbai (2004), Leeds (2001) and Sydney (2003) in this, the series were already decided by then.

    Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Chappell, Dhoni, ICC, England, McGrath, BCCI, Ashes, Ponting, Gavaskar, Kumble | Comments Off

    Dada to retire after the Australia series

    Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

    Saurav Ganguly announced today that he will retire after the Australia series. Whether it was a deal with the selectors or not doesn’t matter. It is necessary that the seniors - or all major players - need to get an opportunity to go like this. I think he had proved all he wanted to prove over the last year or so, playing well against South Africa, England, Pakistan and Australia. He was dropped, he felt he had more cricket left in him, he came back and he was successful. Job done, now he could leave whenever he wanted.

    So overall the right decision. Moreover although it does start the phase where the seniors will go one by one, in some way for at least a couple of series it takes the pressure off the other four. This is because one has already announced his retirement and the process has started. The press and the public won’t be looking for another for some time, unless the Aussie series is a disaster batting-wise. But considering what happened in Australia that is less likely to happen.

    It’s time to look for some great innings of Dada as the batsman or bowler and also some great captaincy moments. I will try to gather those and put here soon. I hope he adds some more to the first list in this upcoming series!

    Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Chappell, England, Pakistan, South Africa, BCCI, Ponting, Kumble | 1 Comment »

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