Sachin Tendulkar: It's only about one man & his moment

WANKHEDE STADIUM (MUMBAI): Wankhede, Mumbai, team, fans — all sold out on Sachin’s farewell Test

March, 2013. Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara were bursting in the crease, both with solid hundreds that too against the Australians. The stadium at Hyderabad was bursting too, at its seam. It was the second day of the Test match when the crowd started showing a streak of unheard, unseen, unfathomable madness — all the 40k in the stands started chanting with the Aussies, joining in the visitors’ appeals against the Indian batsmen in the middle. It was shocking behaviour, shocking, bewildering and unprecedented.

But the crowd was relentless and soon the din got to Vijay. He looked incredulously at the spectators as they burst into joy over the umpire’s finger going up. It was a rare moment in India’s cricketing history. Young Indian openers, rock solid, battering the Aussie arm battery and yet being booed for their longevity at the crease. Even the Aussies couldn’t believe the unanimous Indian support for them. But, at the ropes, Shane Watson smiled knowingly.

Soon, the puzzle was worked out. In walked Sachin Tendulkar in his whites and the decibel levels breached the sound barrier. Hyderabad was sold out to an event awaiting inauguration — Sachin’s 101th 100. None was interested in any other man’s run-gathering, even less in the outcome of the match. All they knew was that their master, their prince, their ultimate God was waiting to come out and score his and the game’s next milestone. All they wanted was that he took guard without delay, even if the delay meant that Indian cricket’s next generation was scripting an ‘After Sachin’ era of competence and winability.

Not that Sachin scored the century in that Test or thereafter. So, it will be déjà vu at Wankhede where yet again everything will be a sideshow to his presence in the middle — everything, including the Test match itself.

The nation still awaits his 101th and this time it's his last chance. Though Hyderabad has never been Sachin's favourite hunting ground with only 39 runs in three innings, Wankhede, where the departing maestro requested to play his last innings, has been warm towards him — he has scored one century and seven half-centuries in Tests   (847) and one ODI ton here. Sachin's one of the greatest moments of his cricket career also came at the same ground when his teammates won the 2011 World Cup final for him.

It is the prospect of the epochal presence of this great man, pitted against the unbelievable vacuum of his absence from the game ever after, that has given mass hysteria wings of dinosaurian proportions, that’s dictating terms to the little master — he should, he must and he will have to score that one last ton, that one last blast, that one last innings to remember — for himself, for the moment and for them.

Skipper MS Dhoni acknowledges that this historical moment is full of distractions, that the team has been doing everything to make it special for Sachin and that keeping the focus despite the din will be crucial.

 “I want Sachin to enjoy his last match. Performance can never be guaranteed so it’s no use talking about another 100, 200 or 400 from him. But we have things planned to give him a special send-off,” he said at the pre-match Press conference here on Wednesday.

Expectations apart, will Sachin oblige? He would love to, of course. But as adieus go, they have been traditionally poignant rather than a source of joy. When greats go, they often limp out as victims of their own halos and relentless expectations of others.

Considering it’s Wankhede and considering the maestro has been edgy and brittle in the autumn of his glorious run, this one looks as uncertain as his team used to look after his dismissal all through the last two and a half decades of his eventful career.

His fans are guilty of unabashedly flogging the last remnants of his time in the middle. They are being unfair by adding the pressure of ultimate expectation on him. Maybe, but when have the millions of Sachin fanatics ever allowed him to be mortal? For them, he is the final frontier of performance — an infallible entity denied the privilege of failing even once in a while.

Whether Sachin will go out in a blaze of run glory is a question scoffing an answer but all have been hard at work to ensure that he gets all the opportunities to make his final statement with the bat.

The ground staff at Wankhede has tried to ensure that Sachin’s 200th and last Test match extends into the fifth day so that he gets his two innings to orchestrate with the bat what Usain Bolt has been orchestrating with his lean legs and Roger Federer engineering with single-handed backhand smashes.

Till then, try and remember there’s a Test match too at hand, that the Virats, Rohits and Shamis have started to cement the team, that there is one Mr Shivnarine Chanderpaul all the way from the West Indies who will be playing the 150th Test of his long career as against Tendulkar’s 200th and, finally, that the Windies arm band will be working hard to get their name in history by taking away some notes from Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and his bat, bidding to deny him those simple two and fro thingies, otherwise called runs, which defined him as God among other things.

Teams

India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt. & wk), Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Ajinkya Rahane, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Rohit Sharma, Ishant Sharma

West Indies: Darren Sammy (capt), Tino Best, Darren Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sheldon Cotterrell, Narsingh Deonarine, Kirk Edwards, Chris Gayle, Veerasammy Permaul, Kieran Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Shannon Gabriel, Marlon Samuels, Shane Shillingford and Chadwick Walton 

Source: The Pioneer, November 14, 2013