So comes number 4....The God to every Indian cricket follower...Sachin Tendulkar
Interestingly when I started following cricket I was not a major Sachin fan. He was already a superstar and everyone spoke of him. I found it odd at the amount of importance given to the one man in a team sport. I probably became a Sachin fan much later but I truly understood his effect on the mass when I became friends with this person to whom 24th April was the biggest day in his year than his own birthday. I myself was a huge cricket fan and had been with many others but none like this friend. Every major accomplishment of Sachin's would be celebrated by this friend. I started to understand that this guy is a God and cricket is just the mode he chose to come by. Well you could compare a Sachin innings with Pink Floyd’s music or for that matter even Dire Straits(his fav band). I personally became an ardent Sachin fan after his amazing knock of 136 in a losing cause against Pakistan. The innings is just a perfect Pink Floyd number a lot of instruments with a lot of class with the orchestration and just amzing lyrics with an epic guitar solo. The pain he was probably so much so that he was probably comfortably numb .Yes he has played many more amazing test innings before and after that but that was a show of his greatness. In an innings that probably became greater by the attack he was facing Wasim and Saqlain at their best and Sachin nursing a back injury the hot draining conditions at Chennai. The 136 runs he scored you could feel the pain he was feeling with every run he scored, but then it never showed on him. The fact that he never showed the pain is remenecent of Mark Knofler’s strumming. So complicated but yet made to seem so easy or a Gilmour riff just spectacular played with no real flash. Probably the only time he looked down was when he played that shot to saqlain to get out and when the last wicket fell. Everything about the superstar fell in place for me. India had that test up for grabs but Sachin got out and the rest just fell like a pack of cards. The most amazing test and one of the most amazing innings goes down the drain. From there Sachin has played a number of great test knocks probably the other great one would be the 241 he scored at Sydney an innings that I would compare to John Lennon’s Imagine. The song one would say not to the class of the Beatles, no special instruments or vocals just amazing lyrics just so was this innings of 241 simple and not a true Sachin knock of flamboyance but still amazing because of his class. The greatness again not at the number but the fact that through the entire innings he kept the cut out was a sign of his mastery in batting. Most of his shots were on the leg side and one would probably say that he was not a risk taker but I would say to score so many runs by curbing a natural shot is a sign of the mastery. There has been much written about the great man. His greatness is in him being humble, polite, and competitive and the perfect idol. His godliness in being a man of few words and even if he makes mistakes his ability to accept them. Probably the two of his greatest attributes to me is the fact that never have I seen any player in the opposition abuse him or pick up a fight with him a mark of respect he has earned and the other is his want to be in the game. I remember the Kolkata test in 2001 against australia where Hayden was going strong and then Sachin got him out with a googly. The man is a genius with the bat or the ball or even in the field.... He could be a Gilmour epic solo or a bono voice or even a Mark Knofler subtlety or just all of them put together or just watch a Sachin innings and you would know what I mean...The man is a legend and a great ambassador for not just the sport but also the country....
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