Memories Cherished: When Tendulkar and the television sets signed a pact...

MEMORIES CHERISHED: PART 2

The Las Vegas Entertainer: As a 23-year old, Tendulkar did with surreal consistency what the heroes managed on the screen

Peel back the late nineties. I was just seven years old when I started following cricket. There was this ‘Boost ad’ featuring a curly-haired youngster who effects a blinder standing in the deep. Sachin Tendulkar it was and for me, even pronouncing his name was as difficult as it would be for a captain to set a field for him – very rarely did I get it right.

He was just 23 years old and yet nothing matched the romance of a Tendulkar walking into the ground. For a youngster, he walked into the ground amidst the air immense expectations. It was a time when there was paucity for talents in India; the total contenders for the squad rarely outnumbered its size. The results were driven by purely the share of runs Tendulkar scored and that attracted people in colossal magnitude. They refused to budge an inch when he was batting and the moment he was out, the television sets were switched off and normal work resumed.

To me, there was a striking resemblance between cricket and the movies that drew my interest towards the game. There were eleven men taking up the field but the India’s fortunes were inextricably twined with Tendulkar’s bat. He did with surreal consistency what the heroes managed on the screen! And there was a characteristic reticence that made him even special; he only allowed his bat to do the talking.

In 1997, there was a test match that India won after which Mark Taylor famously said, “We did not lose to a team called India… we lost to a man called Sachin.”

While it is easy to think how great it would be if a team wins because of you, the hardships of the reverse happening are less thought of; which is what exactly happened during a test against Pakistan in 1999. In a demon of a pitch which was two-paced, chasing a target of 271, unmindful of a severe cruel back pain, he was set to finish things off. It probably wasn’t meant to be a fairytale. Just when things seemed to go India’s way, Tendulkar miscued one, as he ambitiously tried to clear the boundary. India required 17 more runs to win with 3 more wickets in hand when he departed, and eventually lost to Pakistan by 12 runs. On the fifth day, on a minefield of a pitch, he conjured up a knock only to witness this match being listed in one of the greatest heart breaks of all-time. There was an interesting thing that Wasim Akram pointed out after the match, ‘I knew that if we got Tendulkar out we would win the game even if only three were needed to win.’ Tendulkar never turned up for the presentation. “I let my team down,” he had admitted, unable to control his tears. Unwittingly he had admitted what his presence meant to the team.

‘One of the greatest entertainers in the history of cricket’ – that was how he wanted to be known and that was what he was. He gave us tears, heartbreaks, anxiety; times to cheer; times to celebrate and even times for goosebumps to take over. Yet he remained a soloist who was given the center stage every time. Even though every other dancer had rehearsed the same steps, the stage ceased to exist in his absence. His stay at the crease was hallowed and whenever somebody got the better of him, a boisterous groan followed. He was perhaps a Las Vegas entertainer!

Fifteen years have passed by and things have experienced a conspicuous change right from the team he is a part of to his own approach towards batting, but that he walks out to the middle in the quest of his 100^th century in the midst of a similar air of expectations, tells you that amidst a quantum of things that has changed one thing hasn’t – his unconditional love for cricket.

PART 1: https://www.sportskeeda.com/2011/06/19/rahul-dravid-made-me-pass-the-test%E2%80%A6/