GENIUS KEEPS ODI ALIVE

Yesterday i got a chance to witness one of the best cricket matches i had ever seen. Most of the times i do miss the best matches in live. Australia vs India matches are getting better and better in last one decade, but it can go all the way back to the 1986. As I was watching it reminded me the reminisces of India vs Australia tied match in Sep 1986 and the World cup matches in 1987 Reliance and 1992 Benson Hedges. There are two other Test Matches which comes closer to this are, 1987 Bangalore Test and 1999 Chepauk test match , both played against Pakistan. In these two test matches it was the individual brilliances which had brought India closer to winning the matches , one is Sunny Gavaskar and other is Sachin Tendulkar. Ironically in all these matches India went on to loose or tie from the winning position.

Coming back to the yesterday match , who said that one day cricket is dying. To be true, an ardent fan like me started getting bored of too much cricket. My cricket interest started with One day cricket in 1985 and moved on to Test cricket, of which i am big supporter even today. It all started with Kapil Dev untill i saw in a news in Illustrated weekly in my college library in 1988, that two school kids have made a partnership of 600 odd runs in a school shield match. One of them involved in that partner ship has made more news than the other. The moment he came on to scene there was a huge uproar in the print media that he needs to be selected for Indian cricket. Barely he was 15 years old and made a debut in Ranji Match with a century and continued scoring the centuries in all the tournaments including Deodhar, Irani, and Duleep. Cricket Body had broke all the rules to made him an entry to cricket club of India in Mumbai. There was a criticism when he was not selected for the West Indies tour in March 1989 under Vengsarkar, but the days were not very far to see his brilliance on the field. On this very day 6th Nov 1989 exactly 20 years back, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar got selected in the Indian team for the tour of Pakistan along with two other rookies Vivek Razdan and Salil Ankola. I still remember Sachin's debut match in Karachi in mid Nov of 1989 listening over the radio which happens to be the 100th Test match of Kapil Dev. First over he played was from Waqar Younis who also debuted in the same match. He ended up scoring 15 and i remember he telling in many interviews that he thought that he was may not be able to play this level of cricket after playing against the likes of Imran, Akram, Jaffer and Waqar. Now everything is history.

So many cricket journalists have written a lot about Sachin right from Harsha, Peter Reubock, Rajan Bala, R. Mohan, Tony Cozier, Ted Corbett etc.over the years. And the cricket pundits like Chappels, Gavaskars, Borders, Waughs, Khans, Davids, Greigs,... had dissected his contributions left and rights to put their opinions. There were many instances of debate that Is he the greatest ever cricketer played on the planet? ,Is he comparable to Don Bradman?. There were reports that Don himself saying to his wife that Sachin batting style looks very similar to his and sending an invitation for the celebrations of his 90th birthday in 1998 along with Warne. He has been compared a lot with the contemporaries like Lara, Ponting, Jayasurya.. and always rated above them based on the way he conducted himself on and off the field. There was always a criticism that he miss on the big platforms had proven his crictics wrong when he single handled brought India closer to almost winiing the world cup in 2003, made a century and 90 in the two finals which india played and won the cup in March 2008 in Australia and fought alone to win a Test match against England in Dec 2008 to wipe out the memories of Chepauk haunt.

The way he played yesterday, facing may not be best attack but the best fielding side, is amazing. In the words of Robin Jackman the commentator describing his innings during the match " all the superlatives words had been used to describe his inninngs and it is just a privillege to watch from the box such brilliance unfolding" , Amarnath saying in the TV studio " /it was like watching a bollywood movie and how the saga unfolded/", Laxman Siva saying /Nothing gets much better than this" . The score of 175 out of 347 does not say all the story, he carries the hopes of a billion people when ever he walks on to the field with his bat. Ironically his score of 175 matches with 175 not out scored by the another greatest all rounder this country has ever produced, who happens to be my favourite cricketer. Fortunately that score helped the cause of winning the only cricket world cup India had won but not the last night 175....