I know that Sachin Tendulkar is certainly the most complete batsman in my lifetime and worshipped like no other sportsmanon the planet, probably ever. However, it does him no favours when the BCCI forces a switch of venue supposedly to accommodate his wish to play his 200th and farewell Test match at his beloved Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
I wouldn't like to be in the city on November 18th. There must be a genuine danger of severe flooding caused by tears of the Tendulkar faithful! The pressure must be on the West Indian opponents to let him score a century. That is if the Little Master can remember how to do so. It seems like years since he last played a first-class game let alone reached three figures. His previous Test century came at Cape Town almost three seasons ago. Anyone else would have been dropped long ago but we all know Tendulkar has been undroppable for two decades. No chairman of selectors bold enough even to suggest such an action would have escaped the country with his life! The last time he played at Mumbai, also against the Windies, he accumulated a less than masterful 16 runs in two innings. What would happen next month if he skied his first ball to, say, mid-on? Would the man underneath dare to catch it, knowing he would have to be smuggled out of the ground to the airport within the hour and never return? A dilemma I wouldn't fancy facing! Eric Hollies' dismissal of Bradman for 0 in the latter's final innings did at least happen in a different era, and in England, so he got away with it.
His retirement of ODIs did allow younger players like Dhawan, Sharma, Kohli, Raina and Jadeja to show how good they are and, much as I'd have enjoyed watching Tendulkar at the Champions Trophy, he certainly wasn't missed one jot. Even in T20 for the Indians he looked a shadow of his former self, so I'm glad he has taken the decision sooner rather than later. There have been examples of players who elect to call it a day after a particular milestone is reached. Think of Murali and his 800th wicket and Andrew Strauss on his 100th, whie Nasser Hussain went just four appearances before that same achievement. However, it all seems a bit selfish to dictate when and where his last match will be in the future. I guess Tendulkar may be unlike any other cricketer and so his wishes can be placed above that of his team. After all, nobody will remember the result of the match!
Nobody has got near Tendulkar's current total of 198 Tests. Ponting and Waugh have retired still thirty adrift. Kallis stands on 162, Chanderpaul on 148 and Mahela Jayawardene 138, but each won't have many opportunities to add substantially to their totals. In this era of T20 dominance, I think it's a safe bet that nobody else will ever so much as catch a sniff of the 200 mark. However, for all Sachin's impressive set of personal records, his career totals of 954 senior matches, 50,024 runs and 142 hundreds are way short of the best in history. Graeme Hick has played an incredible 1,214 matches, including 178 centuries (behind Sir Jack Hobbs' 197) but Graham Gooch compiled an immense 67,057 in a 28-year career. Dream on, Sachin!
Statistics are one thing, charisma and popularity are something else. Nobody can accuse Gooch of being particularly charismatic but then Tendulkar is no Yuvraj, Afridi or Dhoni. He has always just got on with the job while the whole of India revolves around him. His departure from the cricket pitch will doubtless leave his billion-plus fans with nothing left to orbit. That is one hell of a gap to fill.
