Sachin Tendulkar - the heartbreak kid

Sachin! the champion of millions!

It was one of those chilling December nights of 1999. Indians were touring Australia under the leadership of Sachin Tendulkar.

I, a 6year old then, was having a hard time staying awake with the warmth of blanket almost luring me into sleep, but I couldn’t leave the TV set alone because Sachin was batting.

I knew little about the game itself, as much as a 6 year old of our times would supposedly know. I knew one thing though; I had to stay up till sachin was there on the crease.

For some reason, I felt that he was counting on me for his survival against the Warnes and McGraths.

sachin went on to make 116 that day!

Slowly, the night went into her full glory and my father left my side to get cozy in the bed. My eyes were red with slumber begging me to switch off the television.

After an hour or so, the day was called and my little friend was still there on the crease.

He went on to make 116 in that inning. I knew in my tiny innocent heart that he must have thanked me and millions like me for waking up for him through nights.

1999 was significant in many ways for me and Sachin. No, seriously!

It was the year of the World Cup, my first as a cricket fan.

Sachin and Dravid during the India Vs Kenya Match of the 1999 world cup.

Sachin lost his father just before the crucial game against Kenya. The nation mourned but he had to pay a tribute not in tears but with his willow. He returned to England to join his team and made a brilliant century.

That 140* in that match remains one of the most difficult innings of his life, at personal level. He was battling his own heart, his urge not to cry. That day he thanked the skies for the first time. The pain which resided inside his heart was inflicted on the Kenyan bowlers.

It was the year when I actually got interested in watching cricket. World Cup was the turning point and that knock against Kenya made Sachin my favorite Hero. Before that day he was nothing more than a boy promoting Pepsi for me with many other boys wearing his mask for some reason.

the still from the good ol’ Pepsi ad…

That small Mumbai lad with a squeaky childish voice speaking ‘aila’ every now and then, was termed as “arguably the greatest batsman of all time” at the age of 26 and that speaks volumes.

There were Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly whom I loved too. Anil Kumble remains my favorite sportsperson till date. But something was there in Sachin which no one else had. He was in his own league, where he was the only member.

He has been compared to all from the great Don Bradman to Brian Lara but then I find them utterly irrelevant.

As Andy Flower once famously said,

“There are 2 types of batsmen in the world; one, Sachin Tendulkar; two, all the others.”

For me, Sachin was the reason to watch cricket. He made me go crazy for a game I once loathed as a child because it looked boring to me. And then after the year 1999, I was the one hiding in the neighbor’s house during my exams to escape the wrath of my mother and still be able to watch India playing.

I bought my first bat and it had to have a ‘MRF’ sticker on it. Those were crazy stupid childhood days all thanks to “Tendalya”.

I can’t enumerate my memories just like one can’t rate Tendulkar’s tons.

I am not the only one with memories like those. Every individual from India who has watched cricket in past 25 years has some memories related to the master blaster.

India has the largest youth population aging from 15 to 30 and all of us, irrespective of our upbringings, social stature and other factors in our lives have memories related to the little master.

Every child of our generation who ever held a bat in his hands wanted to be Sachin one day.

Most importantly, he was the inspiration who made parents believe that sports are not that bad after all as a career.

amul pays tribute to the master in its own unique way!

Sachin Tendulkar is perhaps the most polarizing figure in the history of the sport. He has been loved and hated. Everybody has an opinion about him. Millions worship him as God, others feel he is overrated (yeah, there are such people out there!).

Opinions may vary but from the slums of Mumbai to the forts of Jodhpur, we can’t just keep ourselves shut when it comes to this one man.

It seemed like he would play forever starting from eternity. We almost forgot that he would ever retire, that he too was born in flesh and blood and would grow old like human one day.

My entire life of 21 years stays younger than his career of 24 years.

Every match he played, whether he scored a century or a duck, had us all biting our nails. There was no one who made people more nervous while being in the nervous nineties. His moments leading to a hundred brought tension and stress which was more than waiting for exam results. Millions prayers and crossed fingers marked for every run he scored.

every time Sachin got into his nineties, he made the entire nation nervous!

His wicket was the most precious one for his opponents. He sold out stadiums and not only in India.

One Sri Lankan fan once said,

“There can be nothing better than watching Sachin getting a century and Sri Lanka winning the match.”

He earned respect among his peers, legends and fans all around the world equally. His fan fraternity varies from film stars to tennis stars, from the Prince of England to the president of USA.

Something about his batting got every viewer swooning; separating him from the rest.

Something I could never put in words, but the great Kapil Dev puts it the best in his quote,

“You can’t contain Sachin’s deeds in a statistical frame. He brings unstinted joy to the art of batting. Statistics will happen because cricket is a game of runs and wickets. But how can you evaluate his contributions by just counting the runs he has scored? To me he best symbolizes the heights an individual can rise to dominate a team sport. Words can never capture the beauty of Sachin’s cricket.”

Wikipedia shows him a “former” Indian Cricketer and it makes me cringe inside.

I don’t want to believe it. I want to deem it as a nightmare, one that shall soon pass by. That he will come back holding his heavy bat and adjust his pads. That he will hold his bat high once again and look up to the skies.

Alas! He won’t. He never will.

The God and his followers! an unbound connection…