Sachin Tendulkar is revered in his homeland like no other athlete anywhere else on the planet – so much so that his unmatched consistency, passion and committment for the Indian cause has earned him god-like status in the cricket-crazy land of India. His numbers are incredible – 15,921 runs in 200 test matches at an average of 53.79, and 18,426 runs in 463 ODIs at an average of 44.83, 100 international centuries, and the list goes on and on. But Sachin’s game is a lot more than the runs he compiled throughout a 24-year career – he looked at ease in the batting-friendly sub-continent pitches as well in overseas conditions in equal measure. His sheer longetivity is both staggering and frightening – here is a man who had the ability to find answers to all the questions that the game of cricket threw at him – who had the technique and the temperament to survive 24 years at the highest level in international cricket without ever getting found out.
India’s master blaster has never buckled in a quarter of a century of fulfilling the dreams of a billion expectant Indians who stalled their lives to watch him bat – some of the emotional ones with their hands folded in prayer, the rest with bated breath as their hero took on some of the best bowling attacks in the world. Never did he disappoint, never ever was he found wanting. Batting can be a tricky business, as every amateur who has held a cricket bat will vouch. At the international level, the stakes are multiplied – and hand-eye coordination and those split-second reactions are pivotal. A cricket ball, travelling at 90 mph, takes about 500 milliseconds to travel the length of the pitch, and Physiologist Benjamin Libet has proved that it takes almost as long for for the human senses to produce what he termed as a “settled field of awareness”. Basically, this means that a Kookaburra can move as fast as human consciousness. So a batsman barely has enough time to think about getting his feet in position to play the on-drive, let alone execute it.
Tendulkar is one of the very few batsmen in cricket folklore who had honed their craft to the point that he had a whole range of shots to offer to every conceivable delivery that any bowler could come up with. That alone, puts him in elite company, with the likes of Don Bradman, Sir Vivian Richards, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Jack Hobbs and ofcourse his compatriot Sunil Gavaskar. If we simply looked at cumulative runs scored, then the article would have been long finished. Tendulkar finished on close to 16000 test runs, the player who comes nearest is Australia’s Ricky Ponting with 13,378 runs in 168 tests. Jacques Kallis is not so far behind on 13,289 runs in 166 tests, while Lara retired on 11,953, and Sangakkara is going strong on 11,151 runs in a mere 122 tests. The averages however, tell a different story.
Don Bradman is head and shoulders above the rest with an average of 99.94 – no other batsman gets anywhere near. Among the batsmen who have played a minimum of 20 test matches, Sachin’s 53.98 qualifies as the 17th best average, marginally pipping Lara and Ponting (who come in at 18th and 24th), while Kallis can boast of a more consistent track record with an average of 55.37, and Sangakkara’s sensational average of 58.07 puts him right up there with the stalwarts of the game. Tendulkar’s level of consistency stands out – the ‘little master’ has ensured an average of 50 in the last for the last 18 years. But, come to think of it, isn’t a more reliable way of gauging a player’s greatness be to examine how he performed at his peak?
That is where the ICC Player ratings come to the rescue – these ratings allow you to measure a player’s greatness by rating a player’s performance based on a number of factors – such as the level of run-scoring and the quality of the opposition. Tendulkar, for all his greatness, only managed his highest rating of 898 in 2002, after a test against Zimbabwe. Bradman, as you might have guessed, leads the way with a highest rating of 961, achieved after a test against India in 1948. Ponting, with 942, is tied 3rd, while Kallis, Sangakkara and Lara have all been awarded a rating above 900 at a certain point in their career, a level which the ICC says is “an indication of quite exceptional, world class form”. Tendulkar’s rating of 898 in only the 29th highest of all time.
So, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, at the peak of his powers, was only good enough to be the 29th best batsman in the world?
Masterly Batting: 100 Great Test Centuries, authored by Patrick Ferriday and Dave Wilson, recognises the Top 100 centuries in cricket history based on number of different criteria – runs, conditions, bowling strength, percentage of team total, chances, speed, series impact, match impact. All these taken into account, Tendulkar gets only a single mention, at 100th place for the 155 not out he notched up against the Aussies at Chepauk in 1998. Lara has five centuries in the Top 100, including three in the Top 20. So, while Tendulkar may have batted with tremendous consistency under an incredible weight of expectation for three decades, the likes of Lara and Ponting may have made a greater impact on their respective teams. Even the great Inzamam ul-Haq and the understated Rahul Dravid for a matter of fact.
Maybe not the greatest batsman, but definitely the conquerer of our hearts, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar will go down in the history books as the power of billion voices moulded into a 5’5″ structure. Perhaps, the banner which sums up India’s love for this great icon is one that was seen on the occasion of his 120 against England at Bengaluru in the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup.
“Commit your crimes when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed, because even the Lord is watching.”
