The plight of a Tendulkar fan in the age of Kohli

Every boundary he hits instills a feeling of insecurity in me, every century he plunders instills a sense of panic in me, and every milestone he breaches makes me nervous.

Virat Kohli has been plundering runs at will against every opposition in all conditions. He has already scored over 10000 runs in ODI cricket, has already scored 39 hundreds in the format, and he has decimated bowling attacks.

However, I have not been able to enjoy his batting.

For, before Kohli arrived, I had been held captive by a man called Sachin Tendulkar. And, as I write about Tendulkar, a wave of memories flood my mind - that morning in Auckland in 1994, when Tendulkar, all of just 20 years old, mesmerized the world with an ethereal 82 off just 49 balls, the "Desert Storm" in Sharjah against Australia in 1998, when the best bowling attack in the world was smashed to a pulp, that outrageously slashed six off Shoaib Akhtar over backward point in the 2003 World Cup, that age-defying 175 against Australia in 2009 when all of us were deluded into believing that time was nothing but a mere illusion, and of course, that night in April 2011, when Tendulkar held the World Cup aloft, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

And finally, when a part of me died in 2012, when the master announced his retirement from ODI cricket.

As is customary in sport, a successor to Tendulkar responding to the name of Virat Kohli has been anointed. Over the last 5 years, Kohli has had a surreal run with the willow, no bowling attack has been able to dislodge him, and he has emerged as the undisputed monarch of all that he has surveyed.

In all probability, Kohli will go past most of Tendulkar’s big-ticket records. People are slowly drifting to choose Kohli over Tendulkar, and this is one thing that has not been easy to digest.

“Kohli took 54 innings lesser than Tendulkar to score 10000 runs in ODI cricket.” my friend tells me, and my argument of Tendulkar having had faced tougher bowling attacks in more challenging situations gets drowned by the numbers dished out by my friend in Kohli’s favor.

“Very soon, Tendulkar will no longer be called the greatest of all time,” remarked another friend of mine, who is an ardent fan of Kohli. This is the one statement that creates panic in a Tendulkar fan.

Yes, someday, it has to happen. Someday, Kohli will go past Tendulkar, and it is this one thought that does not allow me to enjoy Kohli’s stroke play.

For, I have already given my heart to Tendulkar, and the mind simply refuses to accept that Tendulkar will be relegated to being second best someday.