“Bharat Ratna”, the Batting Maestro Sachin Tendulkar who often called as ‘Cricket God’ won “The Cricketer of The Generation” award in the Espncricinfo awards. He got tough fight from Jacques Kallis and Shane Warne but he withstand to hold the award. He was presented in the Espncricinfo awards ceremony held at Mumbai.
A list of 50 players was nominated for the Cricketer of the Generation award, but jury members shortlisted it to Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis and Shane Warne.
Sachin talked a few words after been presented the award. “My speech won’t be longer than 4 minutes since, yeh T20 ka zamaana hai. I am speechless, honestly, Thanks to ESPNcricinfo for considering me worthy enough. When Martin (Martin Crowe) and Rahul (Rahul Dravid) both spoke about me, I didn’t know how to react.”
Taking about Martin Crowe, he said, “I got an opportunity to watch you up close as a ball boy, then played Test cricket against you. I thoroughly admired you,”
He spoke a few words about close contenders Kallis and Warne. Taking about Kallis he said, “I first saw him in 1996. He looked an ok player and I thought, this guy could become a decent allrounder. But over a period of time, how he changed his batting technique and worked on his bowling was incredible. Kallis used to walk with his head down and I used to tell my teammates that once he has realised which way the blades of the grass are, he is going to make you pay.Kallis pretended that he was tired, but I knew that his effort ball would soon come. I always knew that one special ball was always round the corner and it was part of his planning.“
Speaking about Warne he said, “I first played against Warne in 1992 and you could make out he had the talent, but he wasn’t consistent enough in the first game, The second time I faced him was in Sri Lanka and I was beaten by his spin. I charged him next ball and was lucky to get away. Warne came up to me and tried to charge me up, but I turned towards square leg and ignored him. Post-match, I asked him, ‘Warne, what were you trying to say?’ From then onwards, we became good friends.“
Later he talked about his personal incidents, advances in cricket and the things he observed in his 24-year career. “I grew up playing tennis ball cricket in monsoons on concrete pitches. Then when I was playing cricket in Mumbai, i got senior cricketers to bowl at me from 17 yards. I realised the only way to counter that would be to attack the bowling. A few times I used to miss it, but I used to attack continuously. The times I used to get the shots, I used to tell the bowlers that I got you.“
“Perth innings was a game changer for me because from that point onwards I thought I was ready to take on the world. I had a lot of belief on my ability, but that innings took it to next level. I was quite fortunate to play against the game’s best allrounders: Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Richard Hadlee. In the latter half of my career, the styles changed. Sometimes I used to think, ‘it’s past point, it’s gone’, but then there was a deep point.“
Taking about reverse sweep he said, “I saw Andy Flower play the reverse sweep in a Test and 12 years down the line. Alastair Cook was on 290 at Birmingham recently. And he,of all people, reverse-swept Amit Mishra. The game has changed. It became quite a common shot.“
Taking about the scoring recorded in ODI cricket he said, “Now consistently you see 300+ totals, which is because of the rules change and also due to T20 cricket. In 90s, only Shaun Pollock used to bowl a slower bouncer, now everyone does that regularly. So maybe 20 years down the line, who knows how the game would be.“
“I still believe Test cricket is in good hands. If you see around the world, most matches have results, which is probably due to T20 too, so the formats are complementing each other. When it comes to players though, you cannot force someone to play Test cricket. If someone doesn’t want to play Tests, don’t force him. It’s one format where the bowlers are always going to get you out. In Tests, you require planning, vision and execution. It doesn’t happen that much in T20 cricket, where you can be a hero in three balls.“
The Cricketer of Generation award was presented along with Espncricinfo awards for 2013.
Here is the list:
Shikhar Dhawan won the Test batting award for his rollicking 187 on debut against Australia in Mohali last year.
Rohit Sharma for his ODI double-century in Bangalore was picked as the ODI batting performance of the year, where he scored 209 against Australia.
Mitchell Johnson, who destroyed England with his 7 for 40 in the Ashes Test in Adelaide won the Test bowling title for 2013.
Shahid Afridi won the ODI bowling award with his 7 for 12 against West Indies, a match he also dominated with the bat, making 76 off 55 balls.
The Debutant of the Year, voted by ESPNcricinfo users, was won by India’s Mohammed Shami, who took 17 wickets in his four Tests in 2013, and 30 ODI wickets.
South Africans AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn picked up the Statsguru Awards, which were based on statistical data. AB De Villiers won Batsman of the Year, Best Test Batsman, and Most Consistent Batsman. Dale Steyn was the Bowler of the Year and the Best Test Bowler.
The Contribution to Cricket Award went to Tarak Sinha, head coach of the Sonnet Cricket Club in Delhi, who has been involved in the development of a remarkable number of Indian Test and first-class players. He was nominated for the award by Rahul Dravid. In the award ceremony he talked about his wish of Coaching Indian Team when asked about.
