Don't compare

Karthick Krishnan

It would be the heights of understatement to say that I am a diehard fan of Sachin Tendulkar. To his deserved credit, he has all the strokes in the books and much more. It makes me feel proud for being his fan, his immense knowledge of and infinite dedication to the game are second to none. To watch him play is a wonderful treat to eyes, which is better felt than said. Time alone can reveal his genuine and complete potential, not that it has not been yet, but still.

I really attribute his priceless game against the Kenyans in the last World Cup as his greatest. Not just for the well-timed century he scored but for the fact that he was representing his beloved country while the rest of his family was mourning the demise of his dad. Such is his commitment to the game.

That said, he is nothing more than an excellent human being. The status he enjoys in India is more of divine in nature, for which he is NOT to be blamed, absolutely. One certainly should frequently evaluate his/her feelings from time to time. All the players are just components of the team, and every player is equally important as any other player and no one is indispensable.

Let me humbly present a few facts about Sachin just to prove that he too is human, no other intention otherwise. I am surprised, it has been overlooked both by the media and many cricketing gurus.

I was looking at his ODI centuries. As of today he has 27 to his account. Of those, 24 were scored in the batsmen friendly sub-continent pitches and three of them have been scored away from the sub-continent. Amongst the three one has been scored against Kenya and the other two against Zimbabwe.

In other words, my idol Sachin has not scored a single century against any recognized Test-playing nation away from the sub-continent. I could not digest this fact as a fan, I was hoping it to be wrong and quite eagerly looked at his record once again but in vain. This is just as far as ODI centuries go.

I was happy for him that his outings in the Test arena were totally different, which is what a batsman is judged by. He has scored almost equal number of centuries both at home and away.

Also, I wish to present another important statistic about his Test record, which again has been ignored by many. He, arguably, has the best Test record among the contemporary cricketers. He marks close to 60 in Tests, which is great by any standards. At the same time, his Test averages against South Africa and Pakistan is 34-plus and 32-plus respectively. On subtracting these from his totals, he averages 67-plus with the rest of the teams.

To present it in a totally different perspective, he has scored just half the runs against these two teams than what he usually does with others.

South Africa, Australia and Pakistan have been regarded as teams with great bowlers. As a fan, I really would love to watch Sachin score against them quite often. However, he has been consistent in scoring against the Australians. But most of the matches where he has scored were in the absence of the greats, like McGrath, Gillespe and co.

This in no way is intended to degrade his class; he undoubtedly is beyond that. Sachin probably is the best thing that could have happened to Indian cricket. The underlying point is he too has his own weakness as any other batsman. I just chose to take him as my subject because he, perhaps, is the one who is widely accepted by all. That way, proving him to be a human, would certainly apply to others as well.

This is just an analysis of Sachin, similar statistics could be presented even for Sir Don too.

Conclusively, let us treat cricketers as humans with no exceptions; let us not elevate or degrade anyone beyond or beneath what he is. Each one has his own affirmative and negative traits. The fact is, we are mere humans. Creating demi gods out of humans builds enormous pressure on the individual, which in turn creates a significant impact, which always has been proved adverse.

Not just Sachin, any player for that matter is too expensive for the country to loose. Let's preserve, if not cultivate the talent in us.

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Mail Cricket Editor