Tendulkar: The 'MARAUDER'

Hello and welcome to yet another episode of the “Champion’s Folklore”. Well, in the previous blog I talked about a player we all loved and admired watching. But you can’t do Tendulkar in a single blog, he is too great a player to be encapsulated in a single write up. So that was Tendulkar, the test match batsman and this is Tendulkar the ODI player. Ahh, Tendulkar in coloured clothing, Tendulkar against the white ball, was there a better opening batsman int he history of the game other than the Great Sachin Tendulkar? Simply put, NO. 

 Yet it wasn’t always like that. You first saw glimpses of Tendulkar the attacking batsman when he hit Abdul Qadir for 3 sixes in his very first tour of Pakistan but that was in a test match. For the first 70 odd games Tendulkar was a mingling ODI player, lost at 5, 6 or even 7 at times, by the time he would come in the game was set, the ball would start to slow down, to be precise he didn’t own the game. Then came Auckland, Navjot Singh Siddhu was injured, Tendulkar went upto Ajit Wadekar and Azharuddin and he pleaded and pleaded. He said “Give me one chance if I don’t do well I’ll go back to the middle oder.” Well can you imagine this great of the game figuratively on his knees and pleading? And there was Tendulkar who scored 82 off 49 balls in that game. That was the first of many times, you saw Tendulkar, the marauder, you saw a style of batting that would make your jaws drop. Obviously after Auckland the hundreds started coming, the first one came a few months later at the Khetarama Stadium (Presently Premadasa Stadium). Then the runs kept mounting over, came the 1995 World Cup in India, Tendulkar amassed as many as 523 runs and topped the list of the run getters. Then there was 1998 of course, the Coca Cola Cup, Tendulkar scored that jaw dropping 143 vs Australia, helped India qualify for the finals on the basis of net run rate. On the day of the final, Tendulkar gave himself and India a present, a present for the ages, that 135 at Sharjah in the final against Australia was without a doubt one of the most significant landmarks of his career. You remember it for the desert storm, the storm that erupted from Tendulkar’s willow onto Warne’s leather, and helped India clinch a mind boggling victory. In that period of 97-2003 Tendulkar was peerless, he would go out to open the innings, and just take attacks apart, and nowhere was it better represented than the innings against Pakistan at the 2003 World Cup, remember he took the first strike in that match. Sourav Ganguly always said when they would open the batting together, it was Ganguly at strike, Tendulkar no.2. This time his partner was Virender Sehwag and Tendulkar thought it’s too big a day, Wasim Akram’s too good a bowler, and thus felt the urge to take strike, the rest as they is history. In that innings of 98 runs he played a couple of shots that would boggle your mind, the most remarkable being the six he hit off Shoaib Akhtar’s bouncer. Post 2003, Tendulkar was no more the same Tendulkar you knew. It was largely because his body was now starting to get injuries of all sorts and therefore his second wind that came in the period post 2009 when he thought he was injury free and ready to take the bowling on, it was a treat to watch. In this period he was like a child in play he was enjoying batting like a youngster would do. There he comes and gets a 175 in one game then he goes to Gwalior and peels off a 200 in that game, the first ever doubled century in coloured clothing. Then of course was the 2011 World Cup, you remember it for Yuvraj’s heroics, for that special innings Dhoni played in the final, there was all the talk about winning the tournament for Tendulkar but he wasn’t a mere passenger in that tournament, he amassed 420 odd runs with 2 centuries, thereby beautifully protecting an Indian side that was going through transition. Then he went to Bangladesh and finally got his 100th hundred there. I still sometimes close my eyes and think, 100 100s is that even real? He just played one more innings after that, got 52 odd runs but what’s interesting is the game in which Tendulkar played his last ODI innings, there was Virat Kohli storming through the ranks, scoring a swashbuckling 183, there couldn’t be a more symbolic passing of the baton between two of the legends of the game. 

 But did he play only ODIs then? he played only one T20I and that’s about it. But when the IPL came around you saw Tendulkar coming to terms with playing the 20 over format. Finally he won the orange cap in 2010 but he did so being Tendulkar, he did not play a single rash shot, he hit about 84-85 boundaries and only 3 sixes. 

 Sachin Tendulkar in coloured clothing was something very special, it was a delight to be able to write about him.