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The moment passes

Time has the final word on everything, even excellence in sports, concludes a stoic Chetan Kumar H.

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If you are a big fan of a sportsperson, it can be truly disappointing. However gifted an individual is, he/she can't be bigger than the game they play. "Is that really Mike Tyson?" the question asked by my dad wasn't really a question, but was an expression of surprise. Mike Tyson was being clobbered like a rookie by Evander Hollyfield. I didn't say anything but watched the fight go on. It didn't make a big deal as to who won to me. But I did remember my dad telling me, when I was a kid, that Tyson's specialty was the uppercut knockout punch. Seemed like he had run out of those punches. My father isn't a true sports fan. What he had seen was a youthful Tyson, invincible that he seemed he was, bigger than the game. But now, Tyson was fighting the most feared enemy, time. An adversary no sportsperson has ever won against.

I was probably nine or 10 when I watched a match on television with my brother. The Wimbledon match was between Boris Becker and Ivan Lendl and we had to take sides. My brother picked Lendl and I Becker. Back then I never won against my brother but that day I did win, and big time too. Lendl had no answer to the shots Becker played. I bragged about every point he won as if I had won. I later learnt that Becker bragged that he had the keys to Wimbledon.

A decade or so down the line, Becker was playing Sampras and I caught myself wondering, "Is that really Becker?" Sampras was finding angles on the court that didn't even exist. And the Becker that I knew surfaced only now and then. Sachin Tendulkar made his cricket debut in the year 1989. Around that period, India was playing Pakistan in the finals of a cricket tournament in Sharjah. Back then India was accustomed to playing boring cricket and Pakistan exciting cricket. Each time I watched an India-Pakistan match it was like an anti-climax. Pakistan was always the clear favourite. Anyway, Sachin Tendulkar was playing towards the close of a chase with Sanjay Manjrekar. The proceedings were slow and somewhat boring till Sachin got together some fours. The crowd then got into the act and started chanting: "We want sixer".

I was a kid then but not naïve enough to think that an Indian batsman would oblige such a request. But he did, he came down the track to a spinner and carted him over for a six. The crowd got wilder and so did Sachin. He started coming down the track regularly and hit the ball for a four or a six. It didn't last long though, he holed out while attempting a six; though India could have won had Sachin stayed on and finished the match.

I will always remember that day when Sachin carted the Pakistani bowlers all over and obliged the crowd. Both quite a rarity back then. In just one innings Sachin had hooked me on to cricket like never before. Talk of Sachin's retirement is on the air. Whether he will regain his old form or not, whether he will play the same kind of exciting cricket or not, I have reconciled myself to the fact that Sachin too is fighting the losing battle against time.

It is true all great maestros have the most cherished moments of their lives, but the hard-hitting truth is that these moments are fleeting and don't live on forever.

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