Sachin Tendulkar and Comparisons

One thing that will never fade away in the cricketing history is comparisons. It is nothing new to cricket; it was there between Hammond and Bradman. While Hammond always led the runs tally and high score, Bradman was ahead in the number of centuries and average. People supporting Hammond said that he is an exceptional bowler as well (who took 736 first class wickets) and a great natural athlete (a good soccer player too).

If comparisons haunted someone so badly, then it should be Sachin Tendulkar. In his early days, he was constantly compared with Brian Lara, then later when Lara slowed down, he was compared with Mark Waugh, and then later with Saeed Anwar in ODIs (Saeed Anwar for a brief phase had more ODI centuries than Sachin), he was compared with Steve Waugh, later with Inzamam, and then with Lara again and after Lara’s retirement with Ponting. Recently Mr Ian Chappel went on to compare Duminy with Sachin. It has been three different eras, but only one thing remained unchanged and that is Sachin.

The reason behind this is simple. If there is a universally accepted notion, then there will be a few who will question it and contradict it with another theory. The Universally accepted notion is Sachin is the greatest batsman the cricketing world has ever seen. Few people would always like to say something against this, for conveying their opinion they tend to take other players for comparison. People keep comparing Dravid, Ganguly, Ponting, Lara and lot others with Sachin. “Great men compare their achievements with their goals, while others compare their achievements with those of other people”. The fact is Sachin has set some goals and he is striving hard to achieve them, he is least bothered about what his contemporaries are doing. If he had gone after other people’s records he would have achieved much less.
Sachin when he scored 200* in an ODI many experts came out saying that he is the greatest cricketer ever and even rated him higher than Bradman.
Sachin rubbished all those comparisons and said that he is never in to comparisons and it is not fair to compare. While we can dwell on how he is far better than his contemporary players like Lara, Ponting and others, by bringing out facts and figures. It will be futile, because the people who are hell bent against accepting the truth are not going to accept it, no matter how well we put the facts. People who say that when Sachin scores a century India will lose, will keep saying that though Sachin to his credit has 33 centuries on winning cause and no other batsman in the world ever scored even 30 centuries. People who say that he has not won many matches for India fail to understand that he has the maximum number of man of the matches and man of the series awards. People who say that he is playing only for centuries will never accept the fact that he has the most number 90s than anyone. People who say that he fails in important matches will never accept the fact that he has scored the maximum runs; he has the maximum number of centuries and the highest average among all the players in finals. It is absolutely futile to bring out these facts, because the people who don’t want to accept the facts will come up with the same points again.
So Instead of dwelling on these facts and comparisons, we shall look at the similarity between two of the greatest ever to have played the game; Sir Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar.

Greatness of a sportsperson should never be measured in terms of their sporting achievements alone, but should be based on what difference they made (not only to the sport).
Lance Armstrong created great records but what made is more special is he fought against testicular cancer and came back to create those records. Valentio Rossi by proving that the racer is more important than the machine took biking to the next level. Joe Montana of NFL playing after taking intravenous fluid and coming back and winning the match, he changed the way NFL quarterback played. There are few others who changed the sport and changed the way people looked at it.

When it comes to Cricket, there are two names that come to mind; Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar. They are similar in quite a few ways.

Technique:

While Don himself had said that Sachin’s batting resembled his batting, there are similarities other than their batting too. Many agree to this fact and some experts do believe that Sachin had slightly better technique, as his came down straight unlike Bradman for whom the bat came down from direction of the gully.

Standing Out:

It is humanly impossible for an Australian to break the record of Bradman, likewise it is almost impossible for someone to break the record of Sachin. Even if that happens in the future, that will not take anything away from Don.

People who rate Don as the greatest will often say that he played on uncovered pitches and without helmet and so on, forgeting the fact that until the bodyline series bowlers never bowled bouncers or balls down the leg as a negative tactic. When Bradman faced a barrage of bouncers his average in that series was just half of his career average. There was never a need for helmets until then; bowlers never had the amount of variety or improvisation until then. Bradman never played on great number of tracks or under different conditions. Bradman never played different formats, and never had this much of workload like the current crop of players. The fielding standard was not comparable to current day standards. Despite all these, what made him special is the way he stood away from the rest. All these factors are common for all the players who played in that era, but still Bradman was way above the rest. Likewise Sachin stands far apart from the rest; there is literally no contemporary player who can match his stats. The fact is Sachin is not just leading the way, but is way ahead of all other players so it is literally impossible for someone to even come close leave alone overtaking.

Many say that Bradman’s average was way above comparison, like wise Sachin’s number of international centuries will be.

Intuition:

Another great similarity between these two is to predict where the bowler would bowl. Bradman in his autobiography at several instances had mentioned that he would exactly predict where the bowlers would bowl (Especially in the match where he created the record for the highest score in a first class match). Sachin too is known to be the greatest when it comes to reading the mind of the bowlers. There are several incidents which lay as testimony for this fact. Jadeja said about that, even Amir Khan said about how Sachin predicted every before the bowler actually bowled it during the IPL 1.

Vengeance:

Yeah, you read it right, Vengeance. While Sachin had time and again said that he would never target a bowler, the truth is he has destroyed the careers of many bowlers. Caddick, said he had strategies in place to remove Tendulkar, the next day his ball soared out of the ground and which many revere as the best six of the century. Henry Olanga’s celebration and comments after getting Sachin out, resulted in an onslaught in next match to spoil his career figures altogether. It happened with Shoaib Akthar in world cup 2003, it happened with Shane Warne during the 97-98 series, it happened to Piyush Chawla, who in his first Challenger series got Sachin out with a googly celebrated wildly and in the next series, his first over to Sachin went for 26 runs with all the first 3 balls going for sixes. Sreesanth (during the challenger trophy) bowled a bouncer to which sachin ducked and Sreesanth as usual did his antics and four balls later he was removed from the attack; courtesy Sachin who blasted him for sixes that soared out of the ground and there are many other incidents like this. It is the same with Bradman, in an exhibition match a bowler named Bill Black came on, and the wicket keeper told Bradman that the bowler used to boast about the way he dismissed Don in a previous encounter. That time Australia played 8 ball overs, Black’s first over cost 33 (66424461), then the next over cost 40 (64466464). Black’s second over leaked 29 runs (16611446 – two of the singles came from Bradman’s batting partner). Black was removed from the attack forever. There few other incidents where Bradman targeted a particular bowler and destroyed his figures in first class matches.

Impact:

Don Bradman played and gave happiness to a war torn and economically ravaged Australian people post war. The only happiness for the Australians then was to see Don bat. Matthew Engel, an Englishman, wrote on the day Bradman died: “More than any politician, he gave Australia a unity of purpose and a sense of itself and of its own worth as a country… No sportsman has ever influenced a country’s history to the same extent.”
Likewise, Sachin was the not just a player. I did not live in the same era of Bradman, but to me what Matthew Engel said about Bradman is more applicable to Sachin than any person in the whole world. He was a phenomenon, he sold more televisions in India than any sales genius would do. He halted time, Bus and train drivers would not mind halting their vehicles to see Sachin bat, and companies don’t mind a productivity loss when he plays. His batting was the single biggest happiness for people of India who too were ravaged by political and economic downturn. There was nothing for the Indians to talk about during the 90s; even a fourth place finish in the Olympics was considered a great achievement. Sachin was the one who proved them that Indians can be world beaters too. They took pride in Sachin’s performances. He became a household name; mothers wanted their kids to be like Sachin. It is really hard to explain how he had an impact over the lives of millions in India, and he is continuing to do so. With a billion plus people speaking 18 different languages and 250 odd dialects, those belong to different races, and those who belong to different religion everyone is united by a common string called Sachin. He is a demigod for people, for this single reason he stands heads and shoulders above the rest and in fact even higher than Bradman.

Though it is unfair to compare these two legends, the temptation to rate Sachin above Bradman is too hard to resist, and I would rate Sachin not only above Bradman but also as the best sportsman ever.
“People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” This statement holds good only for Sachin in cricket, every move of his will get in to history.

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