Sachin

 

 

It was a breezy, balmy October evening. I recall I was walking under the giant Shivaji statue next to Udhyan Ganesh Mandir. The faithful in the temple premises and the Bengal Club were in a festive mood and the Durga Puja pandal shone bright as the sun’s last rays fell on the decorations.

But my own pilgrimage was different – to Mumbai’s historic Shivaji Park. There, in the middle of the grounds, were 30 to 40 cricket nets and over 500 boys in white busy with their classes. For them the lovely evening and the festive spirit everywhere meant nothing. They were all consumed entirely by their bats and balls. The one and only goal of Madhav, Arjun, Samanth, Gokhale and the rest was to bat like 'him'. Like the great Sachin – the son of Marathi novelist Ramesh Tendulkar.

On October 7, two days before the start of the Bangalore Test, Shivaji Park was abuzz with anecdotes celebrating the master blaster's world record. Would he now subdue Brian Lara in the Bangalore Test? And if not there, then in the second Test at Mohali? What really was happening to him? Why had he so abruptly ceased scoring those news-making runs in those memorable innings?

But in that greatest of all nurseries of Indian Cricket – yes, in Shivaji Park – none of those boys had the time to muse like me. There was only space here for spirited batting and bowling – and no one you got to snatch a word with dreamed of setting records. It was the spirit of the Gita all the way – chase the goal not the reward. Just like Sachin did.

Bat like Sachin. Live like Sachin. That was what these boys were here to learn.

Yes, on that evening, despite the cruel diagnoses being made in the media, Sachin was in every cricketing soul in the country’s finest lab. “There! You did it! That would have made even him proud! There! Yes! Yes! Hold the bat like him. No, not like that, but like that!” one kid was shouting to his mate. And I could see that none of this was about dreaming, but doing. And doing it like him. There was a great deal more in the same vein at the legendary 'Guru' Ramakanth Achrekar's nets. As I observed the spectacle I could not help going down memory lane to visit those old days – and every time I did that the dominant image was of a chubby, baby-faced, ten-year-old with curly hair, carting his cricketing kit bravely into Shivaji Park.

So, well, it was hard to believe that only five days back this prodigy was sweating at the Chinnaswamy Stadium; and the way he had looked around him it would have seemed as though he was entering it for the first time in his life. But just the same, after that injury and the break it forced him to take, Sachin seemed happy to be at Bangalore’s National Cricket Academy, two weeks ahead of the Indian team camp. He was clearly making plans that he would have no time for when the rest of them touched base. Vinod Kambli, his childhood friend and schoolmate, was effusive in his praise of the great batsman. "As a youngster he would bat and bat and bat – for hours on end. Achrekar Sir would take him to three to four nets every evening and get him to practice hard. And he hasn’t changed. He is his same old self – toiling over the game like any beginner. You never saw anyone with more humility inside him.”

And Vinod should know. Both he and Sachin trained under Achrekar and made their name during their school days itself. The world record partnership between them at Azad Maidan made them icons early in life. Vinod credits Marcus D Couto and Mohandas Menon for the global recognition that came so early and for the other great achievements that followed: a world record at 15 and in one more year 205 glorious days in the Indian team!

"He is a born genius. There’s never been another like him since,” says former Pakistani captain Rameez Raja, who watched him play during his debut match. And he goes on to relive that breathtaking century against England at Manchester.

With Sachin's first century dawned a new era in world cricket. There were Sunil Gavaskar, Vivian Richards and Alan Border before him; and soon greats like Steve Waugh, Sanath Jayasurya and Inzmama Ul-Haq would hit the scene. There were bowlers like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shane Warne and Glen McGrath to inspire him. But there was no imitation. The one and only Sachin played as only he could.

By the time he was 20, Sachin had scored five Test centuries. Manchester was followed by Sydney, Perth, Johannesburg and Chennai, establishing him as the star of stars.

But in that other department – the ODI format – he took his own time. From Gujranwala to Colombo, it took him a full six years and 79 matches to score his first ODI century. And then of course came Sharjah – where the master blaster was all you saw and heard and dreamed about. As Rameez says, "Sharjah was truly the golden era of Sachin's life." In a matter of just three days, he scored two hundreds against Australia. In those two matches, the way Sachin massacred the world's greatest spinner Shane Warne seemed the most impossible of feats. It was an unforgettable experience, and Warne himself would long live under the shadow of "that horrible dream". It took the man almost eight years to get established in world cricket; but once that was done, he was the undisputed ruler for a decade and more. The Tsunami of runs that demolished his opponents made records to tumble like nine pins, and money and adulation to pour in from the world over. But the man himself remains what he all along was: humble, dedicated, hungry – yes, in every way the same committed 'boy' of Achrekar. Ricky D Couto, a tiny man with a lovely heart, is another of Sachin's close friends. Says Ricky, who too was his classmate: "For me he is just the same good old Sachin. Nothing between us has changed. We sat on this same bench at Sharadashram Vidyamandir. And when we meet now there is the same warmth and affection. Sachin values friendships and relationships very much, and like him his wife Anjali too is a great human being."

But as cricketer Sachin has changed. It couldn’t have been otherwise, considering the pressures of age and past injuries after being over two decades in the international cricketing circuit. The once aggressive Sachin has mellowed down into a much more conservative personage. No more ‘massacres’ for him. And over the past six years his batting style has changed as well. This could have something to do with the recent unfair barbs that have been directed at him. Pandit started criticising him, but often Sachin showed that he was not quite done. True, he failed badly in Sri Lanka in the last Test series, but who can forget his performance in the last Border-Gavaskar series and then in the tri-nation tournament? As for the criticism, Sachin has always taken it in his stride. He never reacts verbally; he lets the bat do the talking for him, as for instance after he failed to overtake Lara in the Bangalore Test. As Indian test cricket captain Anil Kumble says, "In our world, everyone is an expert and feels free to comment on everyone and everything once the match is over."

Yet even his critics agree that for 26 years Sachin sweated every single hour that he was awake and remained unspoilt even after being feted worldwide. And, as I said, he never ceased being a great human being. I have known promising youngsters to become stars within a very short time and then vanish from the scene. And that is because success went to their head. That never happened in Sachin’s case. If you lay aside the Mike Dennis episode, nobody ever pointed a finger at him. And yes, when Dennis was gone Sachin was still around, and all through he never once let his family or friends or millions of fans down. .

From Shivaji Park to the National Stadium, from Karachi to Mohali, has been a journey remarkable not only for setting of records, but for these other triumphs as well. Ricky Ponting may well break his aggregate Test runs and in time to come notch the maximum number of Test hundreds. But there won’t be another Sachin.

"Before every series he would come to touch my father's feet and ask for his blessings. What makes him the greatest of them is this humility,” says Achrekar's daughter Kalpana Murkar. Kalpana is an ‘A' level coach and, in a very real sense, is the inheritor of her father's legacy at Shivaji Park. She says she dreams that more Sachin's will emerge from Shivaji Park.

Her comment ricochets inside me as I walk back from the middle of Shivaji Park, past those hundreds of young cricketers with stars in their eyes; who, one hopes, will not have taken their hero’s name in vain. And then I stand outside the Ganesh Mandir where once Sachin, Vinod and Ricky had stood and prayed.

I think I know what that prayer was: Help me, Lord, to get my work done and be a good man.