Never another like Sachin

 

With a nudge to the on-side and a

quick single, Sachin Tendulkar

added to his legend

March 16, 2005

For many Indians, he remains the cherub-faced boy who refused to be bullied by the fearsome pace of Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, and the guileful menace of Imran Khan. For others, the most pristine memory dates back to a meaningless 20-over hit-out in Peshawar, where a 16-year-old who was subjected to breast-feeding jibes launched Abdul Qadir's tossed-up offerings into orbit with impunity.

When the roses fade, they will also remember an innings at Sydney in 1992, where he unveiled a near-perfect 148, an effort surpassed only by the resplendence of the subsequent masterpiece at Perth, where he stood on tiptoe - boy-man on hopelessly burnt and charred deck - to cut and drive Mike Whitney, the eventual matchwinner, and Merv Hughes with a fluency that suggested a childhood spent on that WACA trampoline.

Those innings embellished a legend that had its genesis on the dusty maidans of Mumbai school cricket, where he and his ebony-hued comrade, Vinod Kambli, had laid waste a string of run-scoring records. By the time Tendulkar was 15, Kapil Dev had bowled to him in the nets, while Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar had already earmarked him for greatness.

As the years passed, more and more layers of delicate gold leaf - many against the all-conquering Australians - would add lustre to a cricketing deity quite unlike any seen before. But in a land noted for its idol worship, there was also a tendency to look for feet of clay. And in Tendulkar's case, that Perth innings was to set an unfortunate precedent, of glorious innings tarnished by the ineptitude of those around him. The 122 he made at Edgbaston in 1996, and the 169 at Cape Town a few months later were both works of genius fit to grace any triumphant canvas, but the colours faded because of the manner in which those around him capitulated.

That sad turn of events would be repeated at Melbourne in 1999, where he made 116, and most notably at Chennai a few months earlier where his 136 took India to the door jamb of victory, despite agonising back spasms restricting his mobility for much of the innings. However, a tail prone to self-evisceration ensured that his finest hour would instead be one of his darkest.

When the cynics and the doubters wish to denigrate the Tendulkar legacy, they can easily call upon the figures which tell you that only 11 of his 34 Test centuries have contributed to Indian wins. That conveniently ignores the fact that India's overseas record until the Wright-Ganguly era began - 13 of Tendulkar's 22 centuries till then had come away from home - was shameful enough to be compared to the hideously ugly sister you hid away so that even the frog-prince couldn't woo her.

Sunil Gavaskar, Tendulkar's predecessor as India's batting talisman, had scaled the 10,000-run peak in the hot, dusty and scarcely awe-inspiring environs of the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, whereas Tendulkar chose one of sport's great amphitheatres to plant his standard there. And now, that delicate late-cut off Ijaz Faqih, an integral part of Indian cricketing lore, is joined by a sweetly struck flick off Abdul Razzaq in that I-was-there kaleidoscope.

As time goes by and the old cavalier becomes a receding memory, the hum of criticism will intensify, with some unable to accept the slow fade to black. But as Muhammad Ali, the Greatest, once said, "Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill."

In Tendulkar's case, that will has been his triumph, and it remains as unbending as ever. Jack Fingleton's appreciation of the peerless Victor Trumper was titled Never Another Like Victor, and sadly, it may only be when he's gone that many Indians will fathom just how special this diminutive genius was. As with any other mortal, there have been flaws and there is no need to gloss over them. But as a wise man once wrote of the inimitable George Best, "For the pleasure he has brought to millions, he could be forgiven a great deal."