Sachin Tendulkar, the former Indian legendary Master Blaster made his debut back in 1989 but for the first time technology made its presence felt in his cricket journey was a lot later, 2002 to be precise.
The situation in the Indian dressing room was fast-changing and Sachin Tendulkar too reacted to this change. Sports analytics was just foraying into the annals of Indian cricket. This was the first time an ‘analyst’ was inserted into the dressing room with a laptop in hand.
Sachin Tendulkar: Technology Has Changed Everything
There was a time in cricket, where the run-out calls were made by the onfield umpires until the third umpire rule came into the party. It made a huge difference and the era has changed now with the game of cricket starting to use analysts. All the cricketing nations have hired an analyst who can give a detailed survey of the opponent’s weaknesses and their own strengths in an elaborative and statistical way.
“Technology has changed everything. In 2002, a laptop was brought to the dressing room and I said, What will a laptop do in the dressing room?,’” he told The Indian Express in an exclusive chat.
He later revealed that as time passed, the players accepted technology as it only improved the state of affairs.
“Over a period of time, there was acceptance. Only if there is acceptance, will there be adaptability. Our team meetings started to be more precise. It was not left to individual imaginations. So, the meetings were not like earlier, where we used to say remember back then at Melbourne, how we got them out. And after saying that, no one knew who was thinking about that Melbourne day and how we got the batsmen out.”
“Now, we had data on the screen where you could pinpoint and say where the foot of the batsman was. We knew the number of times a particular batsman has been out in a similar fashion.”
Sachin Tendulkar currently holds the record for most hundreds in both Tests and ODIs. Incredibly, he retained a divine enthusiasm for the game till his last match. He also scored the first double-century in one-day cricket. In 2012, he became the first player to score 100 international centuries.
Later that year, though, he announced his retirement from ODIs. And on November 16, 2013, Sachin Tendulkar retired from Test cricket after a memorable 200th Test-the most by any player.
Sachin Tendulkar Watched The Opposition Bowlers Rather Than Watching Himself Batting
Sachin Tendulkar also said that living with data was not that easy for him as the more he delved into the data, it got even more complicated.
“Personally speaking, I felt the deeper I got into it, the more my mind would get complicated. One needs to have that balance and see how much is enough. And instead of watching my batting, I watched the opposition bowlers. Let them spend more time on me and I will spend even more time on them.”
Sachin Tendulkar mentioned that 2002 was the first time he saw a laptop in the Indian dressing room and wondered what it would do in a dressing room. He later realised that the importance of precise calculations which started to take place in team meetings rather than imaginary battles. He added that it is important to accept the new working things to adapt to the needs of the game.
He is the highest run-scorer of all time in international cricket, and the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries, the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day International (ODI), the holder of the record for the most runs in both Test and ODI cricket, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket