Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar falling short

Suppose we should write about at least one of the Boxing Day Tests. Australia v India is the more interesting one from an impartial perspective and so far India have the upper hand thanks to Zaheer Khan and some old bastard fifties.

One of those was from Sachin Tendulkar, who apparently ‘fell short of his hundredth hundred’. Few people aren’t willing him to get to three figures before too long, if only because the whole ‘falling short’ thing is getting so tedious. It detracts from a decent innings and a decent delivery from Peter Siddle that did for him.

The way it’s going Tendulkar will be ‘falling short’ of a hundred when he’s bowled for three or even when he’s sitting at home on his settee, not playing a match. Theres a risk that he might start to claim he’s falling short when attempting all sorts of other things as well. He’ll tell the missus he’s fallen short of unloading the dishwasher and she’ll pat him on the back for making a great effort, even though all he was doing was lying in bed reading his Viz annual.

Tortoise Dravid will doubtless overtake Hare Sachin tomorrow morning to become India’s top scorer. Ed Cowan top-scored for Australia and Jarrod Kimber’s put some words together in an interesting order at Cricinfo on that subject. It’s an article that says a bit of something about being a cricket fan, hints at how hard it is to make a Test debut and boasts a beautiful closing line. We heartily recommend it.

Is Tendulkar’s milestone a higher priority than winning a Test match?

Home ground. Series won. You could be forgiven for wondering whether the Wankhede pitch has been tailored for one man’s benefit – one man and his legion of fans, that is.

We could say that placing so much emphasis on one man’s achievement is disrespectful towards the 21 marionettes who will also be gracing the pitch during this Test, but it’s also disrespectful towards the beneficiary. Devalue the run and you devalue run-making achievements too. Tendulkar is good enough to deserve better.

Besides, sport is about naturally occurring tales. Steer the narrative and you diminish the story. A 20-over run chase in a Test match is infinitely more alluring than that in a manipulated 20-over format. It has greater context.

Similarly, all Test hundreds should have context. Matches are played to see which team will win, not as run-scoring exercises. Runs are a means to an end.

Or maybe it’s not deliberate. Maybe it’s just a crappy pitch.

Is Sachin Tendulkar preventing India from having fast bowlers?

This week, Zaheer Khan said:

“Indian bodies are not designed to bowl fast.”

Assuming that Zaheer has chosen his words carefully, this seems to indicate that he believes that humans are ‘designed’. If they are designed by God, and Sachin is God, then we can conclude that the Mumbai batsman’s blueprint is flawed or perhaps prejudiced such that he has an easier time in the nets.

Alternatively, Zaheer may be hinting that Indian cricketers are designed by scientists through manipulation of genetic code. To us, this makes more sense. If your firm had the wherewithal to create a cricketer in this manner, it would demand a decent return on its investment.

This is an age of short-form cricket, where runs are the currency, and where long one-day series and back-to-back Tests sap the influence of those who carry out the most physical role in cricket. It simply makes no financial sense to design a fast bowler. It’s too risky an investment and the rewards simply don’t justify it.

Of course, even if Zaheer’s wrong, natural selection will still mean other sorts of cricketers predominate in this cricket ecosystem.

When Dravid is better than Tendulkar and Sehwag

We went overboard with the Tour de France references last month, so we’ll avoid making one here, even though we want to.

Just as you can win the Vuelta a Espana without winning a single stage, so you can be considered the best batsman without being the best in every set of circumstances.

Sachin Tendulkar has a pretty solid claim to being the best batsman in the world because he’s scored plenty of runs in every country in every format of the game. That doesn’t mean he’s the best Indian batsman in seaming conditions though.

You’d have to go with Rahul Dravid, wouldn’t you? His cuts and deflections might not be so eye-catching as a booming six over cow corner, but each one demands exceptional skill, timing and judgement.

Virender Sehwag goes the opposite way – he is a worse batsman in seaming conditions. That isn’t to say that he becomes a bad batsman and it isn’t to say that he can’t score hundreds. It’s just to say he’s less likely to be successful. His method isn’t fundamentally flawed, it’s just not so well-suited to English conditions – it’s a question of degrees, not extremes.

Batting averages

Most of you know that we’ve little time for batting averages as evidence. They give a decent overview of a player, but the idea that Johnny Batstab is better than Micky Flingblade because he averages 1.3 more than him is a load of bollocks.

Averages reward certain players more than others. If you’re the kind of batsman who scores quickly and heavily on flat pitches but struggles against pace and swing, you’ll probably have a higher average than a guy who is best at getting runs in low scoring games.

Rahul Dravid’s career average of 53 is built on a reasonably eye-catching average of 50.75 in home conditions, but it is garnished by an average of 68.80 in England. There, he has scored six hundreds in 13 matches in what are frequently trying batting conditions – particularly for tourists.

In cycling terms, Dravid can hold his own in the time trials as well as the mountain stages.

Tendulkar has been better than Bradman

Over at The Cricketer, John Emburey has made the point that Sachin Tendulkar has been tested in ways that Bradman wasn’t. It’s a fair point.

Different eras

In Ed Smith’s damn fine book, What Sport Tells Us About Life, there’s a whole chapter dedicated to Bradman’s average. Someone somewhere did some sort of science/magic and concluded that in a later era, Bradman wouldn’t have averaged 99, but he’d still have averaged 70-odd or summat like that.

The point is partly that his average was higher because cricketers now are generally bigger-faster-stronger-better and partly that, actually, Bradman would still be exceptional, even allowing for that.

Different conditions

Don Bradman played Test matches in England and Australia and nowhere else. Sachin Tendulkar has played Tests in 10 countries. Only in Zimbabwe has he not scored a hundred – he has only had seven innings there and still averages 40. Tendulkar’s figures in each nation are not all exceptional, but they do stand up to scrutiny. Pace, turn, swing, seam – Tendulkar has succeeded against it all.

Different formats

Bradman excelled in every format he played – first-class cricket and Tests. Tendulkar has succeeded in every format he has played – Tests, one-day internationals and Twenty20. Defiant rearguards and hell-for-leather flaying, Tendulkar can do both and everything in between.

So Tendulkar is better than Bradman was?

We chose our title carefully. Tendulkar has been better than Bradman, because to us batting is about encountering different match situations in different conditions and succeeding. The best batsmen aren’t simply those with the highest averages, but those with the broadest range.

When comparing Bradman and Tendulkar, the latter has benefited from circumstance. We believe that Bradman would have excelled at one-day cricket and Twenty20 as well, were he around now.

But he hasn’t actually done it – Tendulkar has.

Feeble headline of the week

‘Sachin Tendulkar is arguably the best batsman of my generation’

The Guardian have set the bar low. Can anyone stoop lower?

What is Sachin Tendulkar really thinking?

The Cricinfo headline reads: “Tendulkar not thinking of 100th ton”.

Now we haven’t got time to actually click the link and read the article, but we have got time to sit here with a beer or two, spending hours thinking about that headline.

How can Cricinfo know that Tendulkar isn’t thinking of his 100th ton? They state it with some certainty, but how can they actually know it to be true?

Option one: Cricinfo have spoken to Sachin Tendulkar

This can’t be true. Even if it were true, you can’t ask someone what they’re NOT thinking about. Is it possible to know? Surely if you mention a thing, you must be thinking about it in some small way.

If you aren’t thinking about a particular thing even slightly, you’re not cognisant of the true meaning of the words that describe that thing and therefore cannot state with certainty that you aren’t thinking about it.

You have to understand the question in order to answer and in so doing, you have to think about the thing you’re not thinking of.

Conclusion: Cricinfo have not spoken to Sachin Tendulkar.

Option two: Cricinfo have developed some sort of mind-reading device

This must be true. Furthermore, the device in question must be scanning Sachin Tendulkar’s brain for every hour of every day. How else could Cricinfo state with certainty that the diminutive batsman isn’t thinking about his 100th ton?

This is slightly unsettling, because we had until now considered Cricinfo to be a peaceful organisation that did not possess sinister futuristic technology that could potentially be used to enslave mankind.

We’re also interested to know what will happen should Sachin read this Cricinfo headline. Surely, if this were to happen, the 100th ton will be thought about, if only for a split second.

Tendulkar v Murali

We wrote about the various World Cup storylines during the quarter-finals. The stories of Tendulkar and Murali, two ageing greats, seem to be the strongest now, but that’s mostly due to hindsight.

All the same, it makes for a good narrative. There’s also a minor subplot that no-one will care about: it’s Lancashire v Yorkshire!

We’re pretty keen for Tendulkar to win the World Cup in his home city, because that really would be a good story. Then again, he did play 16 matches for Yorkshire almost 20 years ago. Still not forgiven him for that.

Murali, by contrast, is an honorary Lancastrian having represented the county a bucketload of times. He too is one of our favourite cricketers and we’d love to see him win the World Cup in his final international match, if only to see just how much one man can smile.

Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation – that’s how we’re viewing it with our famously boundless optimism.

Dale Steyn versus Sachin Tendulkar in an abbreviated title bout

There’s a great Test series taking place in South Africa at the moment and we’re gutted that we’re missing so much of it because of the Ashes.

It’s like when you get carried away ordering takeaway. The leftovers won’t keep for a week, so you’ve got to make some tough decisions about what gets eaten and what doesn’t. However, while we’ve had a hell of a lot of Ashes, we’ve always got room for Dale Steyn and Sachin Tendulkar.

While Morne Morkel’s a 5-90 then 0-90 kind of a bowler. Dale Steyn’s more 3-50, 4-80, 5-90. Off-days are very rare and he’s been slashing at India almost constantly for three Tests now.

In many ways, Tendulkar is similar. Test hundreds 50 and 51 against this bowling attack in its home conditions tells you pretty much all you need to know about the man.

If we have one minor gripe, it’s that it’s only a three-Test series. Wait. Did we say ‘minor gripe’? We meant ‘colossal ball-aching issue that just about makes us want to cry’.

Taking Sachin Tendulkar for granted

It is so easy to take Sachin Tendulkar for granted. He’s 191 not out against Australia. You see that and you think: “Of course he’s 191 not out against Australia. Why wouldn’t he be?”

The statistics are everywhere. Picking some pretty much at random, this was his eighth hundred in 15 Tests since the start of 2009 – a period in which he’s scored 1,735 runs at 86.75.

You set your own standards. People look at us, unshaven and half asleep and they think: “Of course he’s unshaven and half asleep. Why wouldn’t he be? I can’t tell from looking at him, but I assume he’s also locked himself out of his own house for the second time today.”