"Sachin Tendulkar scores a brilliant century. India loses the match.
So, what's new, some might ask. Nothing, really. Facts are facts. The first Indian ODI hundred on Pakistani soil was a marvellous exhibition of aggressive batsmanship under pressure. Yet, India did lose the match in the end.
On the face of it, it would appear that some scripts in sport can never be altered, improved upon; it's more and more and more of the same, the irony as apparent to all as the glee on the Pakistan players' faces on Tuesday night when the great man departed with India still 85 shy of the huge target.
But, a little over 12 hours after the Mumbai maestro began his agonising trek back to the pavilion at Rawalpindi, when a friend called on Wednesday morning and passed a snide remark about Tendulkar's `inability to complete the job,' this writer reacted so violently as to surprise himself. Had the conversation been face to face rather than on the telephone, there might have been reason now to regret my actions.
But, please, please, will anyone provide any meaningful proof to convince me that Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar's innings have not been as useful to the Indian cause as any other played by any batsman from this country in the entire history of the great game?
So much of what has been said and written about Tendulkar's success not translating into Indian success, more often than not, has been such trite nonsense that you find yourself wanting to laugh at the peddlers of such half-baked illogical arguments.
Just consider Tuesday night's game: On an evening when the Pakistani bowlers finally got their act together, with the dangerous Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami bowling with tremendous zeal and control, the great man played a truly breathtaking innings. The chase was on simply because Tendulkar was on, on song.
What is more, when Tendulkar left, fourth out, India needed 85 runs from 11.2 overs which, given what we have seen in Karachi and Rawalpindi, was hardly an impossible target, especially for a team that takes pride in its batting depth in the limited overs game.
If those who followed Tendulkar botched the chase, how can you blame the great man for leaving the stage after a truly heroic innings that took a lot out of him?
The point about Tendulkar staying on to finish the job or not finishing it is pure rubbish — because there is no point there at all. If the great man came in at No. 5 or No. 6 you can expect him to be around more often than not when the winning runs are scored. But he is an opener. And he has done wonders in that role.
To me, quite apart from Tendulkar's propulsive energy and marvellous fluency with the bat, a lasting image of Tuesday night was the sight of Akhtar applauding the great man's hundred. Not that it is uncommon for bowlers to be quite as sporting. But the Pakistani fast bowler's eyes told a wonderful tale.
There was admiration in those soft eyes. Pure, unalloyed admiration. If there wasn't all this hype about the `rivalry', you'd even suspect that Akhtar might have quietly walked into Tendulkar's hotel room later that night to seek the great man's autograph.
It doesn't come easy — such admiration. A tearaway with attitude, Akhtar knows the damage he can do to batsmen's morale. And the respect he has for his great Indian rival has come from a series of experiences in combat situations.
Five years ago, in a sporting theatre far different — and thousands of miles away — from Rawalpindi, I saw such admiration in Andre Agassi's eyes. The balding man from Las Vegas was playing the finest grass court tennis of his life in a Wimbledon (1999) final. And he was getting killed.
For, on that day, as Agassi would say later, "Pete (Sampras) walked on water." In more than a quarter of a century, I have not seen anyone play tennis quite like Sampras did in that final. What the virtuoso conductor of the grass court orchestra came up with was tennis of such breathtaking, timeless perfection that it may never be matched.
The point is, it is the Akhtars of this world who will know the real measure of Tendulkar's genius, just as it is the Agassis of the tennis world who will have realised how great Sampras was.
Several weeks ago, that unforgettable look of admiration could be seen in another tearaway's eyes in Sydney when the little master left behind a slump and made a big double hundred. As Tendulkar looked to the skies on reaching three figures, you could notice Brett Lee clapping and the message in his eyes as well.
On Tuesday, chasing 330 under lights against disciplined bowling on a pitch where the ball was stopping and coming, it was because of Tendulkar's genius that India managed to make a match of it. Take him away from the picture and Inzamam and Co. might have been in bed by 10 p.m.
The problem is, we in this country are too used to Tendulkar. It is almost as if we have been in the presence of exceptional genius for too long that we have come to take it for granted. And when you take anything for granted, you fail to realise its true significance, its real value.
.......is the Twitter update from Nirmal Sekhar..... the genius who had taken greatness to greater levels... What Sachin or Sampras could do on field, he did it off it. A pen is mightier than a sword, as they say ...
It is unlikely that the tourist guide loitering on the perimeters of the Taj monument would have appreciated its timeless beauty — and even if he did, it is less likely that he might have pondered its historic value to a civilisation.
On the other hand, a visitor from faraway Canada or Germany would sit there awestruck in front of the Taj all day until it is framed in all its splendour in twilight.
For us Indians, it's a bit like that when it comes to Tendulkar. Too often we evaluate him and what he has done in the middle in terms of India's victories and defeats. Which is a pity, for when we bring in such pedestrian arithmetic, what we can and should admire in the great man eludes our grasp.
To put it simply, those of us who rate Tendulkar's masterpieces purely in terms of what they have meant for the team — played in a winning cause or not — sadly settle for less. And some of us will realise this long after the great little man has played his last innings for his country.
Celebrate his genius now, revel in its incandescence now. In other lands where cricket is played, they build monuments for far lesser men. So let us celebrate Tendulkar's genius, in victory and in defeat. Some time in the not too distant future, we may not have anything quite like it in the Indian cricket team to celebrate.
In my book, anyway, there is nothing in Indian sport now (perhaps ever) that is quite as worthy of celebration as the genius of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar."
PS- For those intrigued by the image of the paper article, devour this gem of an article from Nirmal Sekhar on the Sharjah Sachin..... @ angelfire
