In an age of hype, more perhaps has been asked of Sachin Tendulkar than other greats of the game. In Tehelka, Suresh Menon examines whether the life on the field has kept in step with the myth:
IT IS POSSIBLE that Sachin Tendulkar can walk on water. That wouldn’t surprise a billion Indians, who also probably believe he can catch bullets in his teeth and has X-ray vision. When he was hauled up for ball tampering in South Africa (a technical, rather than a deliberate crime), the whole nation jumped to his defence, and it nearly split the cricketing world. Now Adam Gilchrist has dared to speak the unspeakable – suggesting that Sachin might be human after all, and subject to the pulls and pressures of humankind.
Of course, by the time you read this, order is likely to have been restored. Gilchrist will say Sachin is a great player and a personal friend, and everything he wrote about the player changing his version of what happened during the Symonds-Harbhajan fracas was taken out of context. He will blame it on the media for blowing up the story. And laugh all the way to the bank as his book sells.
What sort of a man is this who can do no wrong? I once read about the footballer Pele being hauled up by a referee – later, the referee was reprimanded for this act. Perhaps, some day an umpire might be officially chastised for giving Tendulkar out leg before. Future biographers might go out of their way to look for stories that show up Tendulkar in poor light, to balance the near-saintly qualities that are in the public domain. They might struggle. The stories they find might merely show that Tendulkar was human after all – and that’s not a bad thing to be.
Similar Posts:
- The 200 Club
- Tendulkar at 20
- Heavy on youth, light on experience
- Monkey business: Proctor v Harbhajan Singh
- Another milestone waiting for Tendulkar in Tests
0 Responses to “Long playing record”
Leave a Reply