| Author | Message | ||
     Tthanks Pilla Bewarse Username: Tthanks Post Number: 507 Registered: 01-2013 Posted From: 171.161.160.10 Rating: N/A |
Q&A: Why Tendulkar Is Greatest Since Gandhi Article Comments Scene Asia HOME PAGE » By Saptarishi Dutta CONNECT Indranil Mukherjee/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Sachin Tendulkar walked in to bat during a Ranji Trophy match between Mumbai and Railways at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai, Nov. 2, 2012. Sachin Tendulkar, arguably India’s greatest sportsman, started playing his last Test match Thursday against West Indies in his hometown Mumbai. After this, his 24-year old cricket career will come to an end. Here is a quick summary of the mindboggling statistics Tendulkar’s cricket career has generated. Lately, the 40 year old hasn’t been as lethal as he used to be on the cricket pitch. But his departure will surely bring tears to the eyes of his fans in India and abroad. Dileep Premachandran, editor-in-chief of Wisden India, a cricketing magazine, who has been covering cricket in India for nearly 15 years, spoke to The Wall Street Journal about Tendulkar’s retirement, his influence on young cricketers and why he’s the only true pan-Indian icon since Mahatma Gandhi. Edited excerpts. The Wall Street Journal: You say when Sachin Tendulkar started his career Indian economy was opening up and growing rapidly. Now that he is retiring, India’s economic growth is also declining. Can you please elaborate on how Tendulkar can be seen as a totem for India’s economy? Do you think there is a direct link, or is it just a coincidence? Dileep Premachandran: It was more as a joke. It is pure co-incidence. I don’t think the two are related in any way but it’s something that caught my eye that the decline in his personal fortunes just happens to occur at the same time as the economic slowdown. It’s obviously not related in any way. WSJ: What effect do you think he has on the national psyche? Mr. Premachandran: I think it’s a difficult one to answer. I have written this before, I don’t think there is a single individual since Gandhi who has rallied so many people behind him or her. I don’t think there has been a single person who has enjoyed that kind of popularity wherever you go in India. If you take the big Bollywood stars for example, if you go to Chennai, they have no sort of following because Bollywood in not big in Chennai. There has never been a pan-Indian icon truly. Even politicians, they have their pockets of influence whether that’s north or their own state. I don’t think you have ever seen somebody with the sort of pan-Indian appeal that Sachin has had. Wherever I have seen him play, it’s been a same sort of raptured response whenever he comes out, not just to bat. But even he just walks out to the field for practice whatever the case may be, it has always been a uniform thing. WSJ: What kind of impact does Tendulkar have on young cricketers such as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina on and off the field? Mr. Premachandran: I think all these guys have benefitted hugely from him by playing alongside him for all these three or four years whether it’s Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma. When you have someone with such an impressive work ethic and such commitment to the game, how can you not learn from that? They have seen what he has achieved. They have seen the work he has put into to achieve that. And, you know, if you don’t learn from that then you are a fool. And I don’t think any of these kids are fools. When you are sharing a dressing room with someone who has been there done that, enjoyed tremendous highs and enormous lows, when he tells you ‘Don’t get nervous just play out the first 20 balls and you’ll be okay’, you listen to that because it’s coming from somebody who has done what needs to be done. WSJ: Who do you think has the potential to match or beat Tendulkar’s records? Mr. Premachandran: I honestly don’t think the 200 Tests, the runs record and the hundreds record will be broken, because I know there are people like Alistair Cook [England’s leading Test century maker and the youngest player to go past 7,000 runs in Test cricket], but I honestly cannot see him going on to play for another 15 years. Not too many players enjoy the kind of consistent run that [Tendulkar] had. Of these 24 years, about 18 or 19 were good ones. You probably had five bad years. It’s hard to imagine another player having 19 good years. I look at somebody like Ricky Ponting [the former Australia captain] who at one stage people said was going to go past Tendulkar. Look what happened there. Once you hit the wall at a certain age, usually most people don’t come back with the greatness of Sachin. He did come back. I think Virat will probably do it on the One-day [international] numbers. But again it depends whether he can stay focused, can he stay consistent for 20 years, which Sachin did. In the One-day game, he churned out runs relentlessly for two decades. Can any of these guys do that? I feel Virat is at the best place to threaten the One-day record. But again I wouldn’t get carried away because not too many people have what it takes to play that long with that level of consistency. WSJ: There is never ending debate on who is the greatest batsman in the world out of Sir Donald Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar? Who do you think is the greatest or is the debate futile? Mr. Premachandran: I think it’s a futile debate. I think Bradman played cricket in two countries if I am not wrong, against four teams. I think Sachin played in over 100 venues internationally and in three different formats. It’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Of the batsmen I have watched in my lifetime, Tendulkar is definitely the most complete all-round batsman. I can’t think of anyone who is that versatile across formats. WSJ: Sachin’s absence from the Test team will be a major void. Do you think the Indian cricket team is prepared for that or will they need to re-strategize? Mr. Premachandran: I think they are prepared for that. They have been preparing for that for pretty much close to a year. We have already seen players like Shikhar Dhawan coming to the team, Pujara has been there for a year and a bit now after his comeback, Virat is there for more than a year. Rohit is just coming. I think what India needs to do now is to get over the whole comparison mentality. Pujara is not the next Dravid. Kohli is not the next Sachin. Let them be their own people and we’ll see how good they are in a few years’ time. I think it will take a little patience. They are not going to go to South Africa and win two-nil or win five-nil in England straight away. That’s not going to happen. I think people need to give them some time. Sachin also took some time to find his feet, so did Rahul Dravid, so did Saurav. All these players took time to find their niche. WSJ: What’s your favorite Tendulkar innings and why? Mr. Premachandran: Of the ones I have seen on television and overall, I would still go with Perth when he was 19 years old back in Feb. 1992. Just to see a boy take on Australia with a series lost, on what was the fastest pitch in the world and a score a hundred like that, it was something incredible. I think it probably gave an entire generation of players the belief that if this guy can do it, if we work hard, maybe we can too. So for that reason, probably it remains my favorite. WSJ: Do you think all the hype with his last Test might impact his game? Will he be able to enjoy his last cricket match? Mr. Premachandran: I think he will enjoy. Obviously the hype and the hoopla around it, you can’t shut it out totally. But if there is any man who is capable of shutting out the distractions, I think it’s him. I guess being the last Test, there will be a sense of liberation. You know this is it and ‘Let me just go out and enjoy.’ I think he will. I saw after the nets today, he was smiling, cracking jokes. I think he will just go out and have a good time. WSJ: There was a debate that he has overstayed his international career. What do you think? Mr. Premachandran: The issue I have with this debate, people who are debating, like you and me have no concept of greatness because we are not great. We do not know what it is like to be in that position. These players know when they are on their way down, but they also find ways to compensate. In Tendulkar’s case, I think we shouldn’t judge him by the numbers of the last two years. It’s also been a team very much in transition. It lost Rahul, it lost VVS [Laxman.] It has now lost Sehwag and Gambhir maybe not forever, but they are not in the team now. It would have been a huge sea change if there was not one old head in the team to guide the younger players. So, I think in that sense he had a job to do and he has done that. Transition is one of the hardest things to manage when you have a team that is aging. By and large, India has done it well. They have phased out guys almost series by series and brought in one or two new guys each time. That’s the best way to go about it because if four or five guys go at the same time, you just collapse in a heap, which is pretty much what happened to Australia after 2006. See the best of India Real Time’s coverage on Sachin Tendulkar here. Share your favorite Tendulkar innings by tweeting to us @WSJIndia or leave your comments in the comment section |