The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Tendulkar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Tendulkar - a match-winner

By Vijay Parthasarathy

CHENNAI, OCT. 13. You wouldn't have thought one swollen-headed elbow would refuse to submit to an entire nation's will. But there you have it: it now appears certain that Sachin Tendulkar will miss the second Test against Australia, starting on Thursday.

And, as the rest of the team gets down to the altogether serious business of salvaging some pride after the Bangalore defeat, it's hard to quantify exactly how much they will miss the man.

This is not a one-man show, you are reminded curtly, each time Sachin Tendulkar suffers an injury and misses a match in the process. But the Indians, already 1-0 down, will be under some pressure; and now they must miss the services of the only batsman to have made two Test centuries against Australia at Chepauk.

Not the sort of thing that usually makes you weep with joy.

And, just to reinforce that point, Tendulkar averages 109.16 per innings at this ground. Four centuries from five Tests — think his team might miss him? Think Miles Davis (bless his soul) might miss his trumpet?

Critics whisper Tendulkar is ageing; his form has dipped.

Even so, India stepping out without Tendulkar is like a boxer entering the ring with two black eyes and a paunch — the openers, poor chaps, aren't in the best of form anyway; and now, the middle order sags.

Superb knock

Tendulkar is a match-winner; make no mistake about that. The first time he played Shane Warne at home (that was at Chepauk in the first Test in the 1997-98 series), the leg-spinner induced an edge and had him caught at slip for four. In the second innings, however, the Indian scored a chanceless 155 not out, and in the process made Warne look like a part-time leg-spinner. India, of course, won that match.

That was Tendulkar at his prime: you got him out once, and regretted it for the rest of your career — or at least, what remained of it.

Who doesn't remember that gorgeous first innings effort of 126 in the final Test during the 2000-01 series? In response to Matthew Hayden's 203, Tendulkar smashed fifteen 4s and reached his 25th hundred with his second six. India went on to win that Test by two wickets.

Tendulkar's efforts here easily overshadow Allan Border's knocks of 162 and 106; essays on grit, which came some seven years apart. Only Dean Jones's classic 210 in the tied Test and Kapil Dev's response, a magnificent 119, remain untarnished in memory; although it's quite likely both innings owe their fame to the context.

Jones battled acute nausea and dehydration during his innings that lasted more than eight hours. At one point he even threw up; and had to be hospitalised afterwards. Jones's 210, peppered with twenty-seven 4s and two 6s, remains the highest score posted by an Australian at this ground.

Kapil's 119, in India's first innings, helped save the follow-on, and reinforced the captain's reputation as the country's greatest all-rounder. Walking in at the fall of Ravi Shastri's wicket at 206 for five, Kapil hammered twenty-one 4s and ensured that India crossed 374, before he was dismissed.

Venue of records

Chepauk, of course, has seen several batting records. Saeed Anwar scored his record-breaking 194, the highest ever score in a one-day international. Sunil Gavaskar passed Don Bradman's 29 centuries in 1983-84 with his personal best 236 not out.

Meanwhile, Warne, who has come a long way since his little episode with Tendulkar six years ago, might just bag the mother of all bowling records over the next couple of days.

You can never really predict anything in sport. But for anyone desperately looking for straws to clutch at, there might still be some consolation.

Wicket number 533, it seems at any rate, won't be Tendulkar's.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport