[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Why can't we pray our tributes without being overtly emotional, to the point that is sounds absolutely meaningless. Have you ever felt like this, much less written about it, about our real life hero's?

Different people, different views.

Even for me, cricket will never be the same again! I have stopped watching cricket matches these days. Just don't have an interest towards the game anymore. The last game I really took to my heart was his ODI 200. True to my words that day (I guess I've posted the same in team-bhp that same day)- I'm leaving this game with his retirement.

May sound meaningless to many- but yes, its MY choice. :-) Afterall, without meaningless emotions, life wouldn't be fun without the micheal jacksons, rajnikants etc of our world now, would it?

[amalji]

I'm happy that Sachin retired not because I want to see him go but because, people who doesn't even have the ability to clean his bat stop blabbering about how bad Sachin is batting at the moment. He was one of a kind. For me, cricket will never be the same without him.

It's not just the runs that he scored that made us watch him. But, it's the way he scored those runs and the passion and genuine love he had towards cricket. Maintaining that passion for 23 years is no easy job. Most of his fans became a fan of him even before he hit his first century. The way he played was at a different level compared to the batsman of his generation.

[punto_]

Originally Posted by amalji

Thought of sharing some special Sachin ODI moments here.

Thank you for the videos!

Well, I feel that he should have retired probably just after world cup. However, I respect his decision. He served the cricket and the nation like a real hero. Thank you for all the emotions you have given us all through these years, Sachin.

[travelwriter]

Sachin was a good technician with the bat. And also had a long standing power thanks partly to the 'officials.' Beyond that, I consider everything else herd mentality. I do not think he is the greatest by a long margin. He has hardly won a match for India. I can only remember two innings in Sharjah against Aus and one against Pakistan in South Africa world cup where he started off well. Too few for a guy who has been around for nearly 500 innings and 20 years!

He has had quite a few 'well played' innings. But when a strong batsman was required to win it for the country, he wasn't there. I am referring to the test match against Pakistan in Madras where he holed out to a fielder when India required 16 runs to win on the last day of the match. India went on to lose that match.

He has piled what can at best be called personal feats and records and nothing more. Just because most of the Indian players are like that does not make his attitude condonable. We have had match winning innings in the past...Kapil Dev's 175 against Zimbabwe in 1983, Kumble and Srinath (I think) against South Africa in Bangalore, VVS Laxman's 281 against Aus in Calcutta...

I haven't see Sachin do something like that for the team. So, some pat on the back for personal records and entertainment in dead, flat pitches. Anything more and I will be forced to call Shah Rukh Khan the ambassador of the Indian poor (because his films were popular across sections) and call AR Rehman a musician because he won an Oscar!

[addyhemmige]

Originally Posted by amalji

I'm happy that Sachin retired not because I want to see him go but because, people who doesn't even have the ability to clean his bat stop blabbering about how bad Sachin is batting at the moment. He was one of a kind. For me, cricket will never be the same without him.

Really!!! If people who don't have the 'ability to clean his bat' can praise him, why can't they criticize him?? I know people are emotional about him, but lets be practical.

Originally Posted by amalji

It's not just the runs that he scored that made us watch him. But, it's the way he scored those runs and the passion and genuine love he had towards cricket. Maintaining that passion for 23 years is no easy job. Most of his fans became a fan of him even before he hit his first century. The way he played was at a different level compared to the batsman of his generation.

This I agree with. Nobody is doubting the man's commitment to the game. He's been there, done that. It is time to move on. Everything must come to an end at some point.


This retirement though, should have come in an earlier match or after playing atleast one match during the Pakistan series. He definitely deserves to retire with a full ovation and on the field. This somewhat doesn't look so good.

Edit: Thanks for posting the video collection. Hope to save some of these.

[amalji]

Originally Posted by addyhemmige

Really!!! If people who don't have the 'ability to clean his bat' can praise him, why can't they criticize him?? I know people are emotional about him, but lets be practical.

Sport is meant to make people happy. A legend like him deserves emotional feelings as well. If all people just use their brains for everything, the world would have been so boring. While what you said might be true practically, I don't want to be practical right now.

And I'm not sure why you got offended. I never told you are not good at cleaning his bat.

Originally Posted by addyhemmige

This I agree with. Nobody is doubting the man's commitment to the game. He's been there, done that. It is time to move on.

Everything must come to an end at some point

Even when someone dies, it's the same. Practically looking at it, every good thing should come to an end. But people who love that person will feel sad and they will still long for that person to be alive irrespective of the ability or capability of that person. That's because human beings have a thing called emotion. For me, I love him for the joy he has given me all these years.

Originally Posted by addyhemmige

This retirement though, should have come in an earlier match or after playing atleast one match during the Pakistan series. He definitely deserves to retire with a full ovation and on the field. This somewhat doesn't look so good.

After having done what he has all these years, he atleast deserves the freedom to say when he wants to go out. I respect his decision.

[Omtoatom]

Late or whatever guys, that is 23 years of blood, sweat and toil right there! Lesser mortals would've long since gotten buried six feet under from the sheer weight of expectations of a billion Indians. It sure must've been one heck of a back-breaking job to do over two decades and then some!

Congratulations Sachin and thank you for all the memories; for leaving the game richer.

As an ardent fan, I demand one last farewell. It will only be a fitting to such an outstanding career.

[addyhemmige]

Originally Posted by amalji

I'm happy that Sachin retired not because I want to see him go but because, people who doesn't even have the ability to clean his bat stop blabbering about how bad Sachin is batting at the moment.

I guess the above quote has made it clear that anyone who criticizes Sachin should be qualified enough to do so.

Originally Posted by amalji

And I'm not sure why you got offended. I never told you are not good at cleaning his bat.

My dear sir, you have made a very generalized statement and it is a counter argument to your statement. And no, no offense taken or meant from my side.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by travelwriter

He has hardly won a match for India. I can only remember two innings in Sharjah against Aus and one against Pakistan in South Africa world cup where he started off well. Too few for a guy who has been around for nearly 500 innings and 20 years!

Well, just to answer this accusation -

He has been Man of the Match 13 times in Test matches and Man of the Series four times, out of them twice in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.

=> At least in 4 test series he was the best player. 13 MoM as well.


Similarly he has been Man of the Match 60 times in One day International matches and Man of the Series 14 times

=> At least in 14 series he was the best player. MoM in 60 games from 450 odd he has played. Dont you think that is unusually high for one player, given that there are 22 players on the field.

Its far far more than just 1 or 2 instances you remember. Probably you forgot to watch India play when Sachin was in his prime. Not your fault as at that time nobody else was in their prime.

Source for these stats: Wikipaedia (I suppose it is authentic enough).

[amalji]

Originally Posted by travelwriter

Sachin was a good technician with the bat. Beyond that, I consider everything else herd mentality. I do not think he is the greatest by a long margin. He has hardly won a match for India. I can only remember two innings in Sharjah against Aus and one against Pakistan in South Africa world cup where he started off well. Too few for a guy who has been around for nearly 500 innings and 20 years!

This whole stuff of "only innings which won match for India matters" was started by the English media because they didn't have any other way to criticize Sachin. Even a dump century by an Australian would have won the match because he had that kind of support in the team whether it's bowling, batting or fielding.

And cricket is a team game. Individuals don't win matches. It's the team which wins matches. Sachin is a contributor in that team, and he gets all the accolades because he has contributed more than any other Indian in Indian ODI victories and even in games where India lost the match, he has ensured that the crowd was entertained when he was at the crease.

Now regardless of all these facts, stats tell a different story in his effectiveness in Indian wins, here are some stats that you would want to go through.

1) Sachin averages 56.63 in 234 ODI matches ( Regarding Tests we'll talk about that when he retires from Test cricket ) where India won. I'm really eager to get the list of people who are greater than him and then see how much they average in their team's victories.
2) Sachin got 62 man of the match awards in his ODIs. I would like to know the "people who are greater by a long margin" and their list of man of the match awards.

Originally Posted by travelwriter

He has had quite a few 'well played' innings. But when a strong batsman was required to win it for the country, he wasn't there. I am referring to the test match against Pakistan in Madras where he holed out to a fielder when India required 16 runs to win on the last day of the match. India went on to lose that match.

Wow, that was one of his best innings regardless of the result of the match. And the people of Chennai should be grateful to him for that kind of an innings. He was fighting severe back pain in that innings. He was really concerned about his health and was not sure as to whether he will be able to continue next day. So, he was trying to finish of that match and picked a ball to hit it over the infield. Unfortunately that ball turned out to be doosra from Saqlain. Had it been any other team, they would have won it since Sachin took India so close to victory. But, unfortunately our team was too dependent on one man - Sachin.

Originally Posted by travelwriter

He has piled what can at best be called personal feats and records and nothing more. Just because most of the Indian players are like that does not make his attitude condonable. We have had match winning innings in the past...Kapil Dev's 175 against Zimbabwe in 1983, Kumble and Srinath (I think) against South Africa in Bangalore, VVS Laxman's 281 against Aus in Calcutta...
I haven't see Sachin do something like that for the team.

1) Kapil Dev's 175? What else does he have after that ? I'm eager to get that list.
2) Kumble and Srinath's innings were good, because they were not expected to perform as a batsman. Similarly Sachin has won us matches with the ball as well ( even though he is not expected to do that ).
3) VVS' innings was classic and happens once in a life time. The fact that Sachin didn't get to have a similar innings no way questions his contribution. Because great people are ranked by the performance they have given over a period of time, not a solitary special innings.

The problem with us is that when the team goes to 5/27 or something, and someone suddenly blasts a 175, we say that is a match winning innings. When someone like Sachin blasts a 100 at the top, helping his co-batsman bat at their own pace, and hence prevents such a batting collapse, people don't recognize that as match winning innings. It doesn't matter even if he does that with a frequency that no one ever have done before. The only thing that matters for us is a 5/27 scoreline and then someone rescuing from there. We have to remember that Sachin played most of his career as a top order batsman, and a top order batsman prevents a collapse rather than rescue from one. It's when Sachin falls that Indian collapse used to start for India.
Stats don't lie and that is why the ODI average of 56 in matches where India won shows how much of a match winner he is.

When Sachin used to bat at number 6 and 5, he used to play several crucial innings at that position. ( Similar to the Raina of today )

I just went through his first 10 innings in ODIs where he batted in middle order, and 4 of them can be termed as crucial match winning innings. We also have to remember that at those time, India's ODI record was not at all good. We used to lose more matches than we win.

Match no: 3 - 36 of 39 balls. Position - number 6
Even though, this is the match where Sachin scored his very first runs, he did not show any of that in the way he played greats like Richard Hadlee. He along with Kapil Dev helped India post a competitive total inspite of the dead slow scoring by top order batsman of 221 which helped India win by 1 run.

Match no: 7 - 31 of 26 balls. Position - number 6
Chasing 282 for victory, and India sluttering at 180 for 4, the young Tendulkar played a crucial little cameo to help India chase down the target against a strong English side.

Match no: 8 - 36 of 21 balls. Position - number 5
India was scoring very slowly and at that rate would have struggled to reach 220 odd before Sachin played this little cameo which took India to 245 and finally helped India win by just 19 runs.

Match no: 9 - 53 of 41 balls. Position number 5
helped India chase down 230

Originally Posted by travelwriter

So, some pat on the back for personal records and entertainment in dead, flat pitches. Anything more and I will be forced to call Shah Rukh Khan the ambassador of the Indian poor (because his films were popular across sections) and call AR Rehman a musician because he won an Oscar!

Aaaha, dead flat pitches. For the record, Sachin has scored heavily all over the world. Correct me, if I'm wrong. And what's the explanation of the dead flat pitch? If Ricky Ponting tours India and fails miserably, is it still dead flat pitch ? If Shane Warne who has done well all over the world is not able to do well in spin friendly conditions in India, does that make him pathetic ? or does that make our batsman so good in such conditions ?

And I would recommend that you don't speak about ARR and Shahrukh

Originally Posted by joslicx

Its far far more than just 1 or 2 instances you remember. Probably you forgot to watch India play when Sachin was in his prime. Not your fault as at that time nobody else was in their prime.

Source for these stats: Wikipaedia (I suppose it is authentic enough).

+1 to that. And yes, all the statistics that you provided are authentic.

[bbhavan]

Originally Posted by joslicx

Well, just to answer this accusation -


Similarly he has been Man of the Match 60 times in One day International matches and Man of the Series 14 times

=> At least in 14 series he was the best player. MoM in 60 games from 450 odd he has played. Dont you think that is unusually high for one player, given that there are 22 players on the field.

Its far far more than just 1 or 2 instances you remember. Probably you forgot to watch India play when Sachin was in his prime. Not your fault as at that time nobody else was in their prime.

Source for these stats: Wikipaedia (I suppose it is authentic enough).

Recently I got a chance to watch him play at the last Ranji trophy match at Wankhade. ( He was fielding then.) And I was astonished to see the commitment and intensity shown by him in the field. It was really an eye opener for me to see the passion of a man who was doing his work for the last 30 years intensely and has already acclaimed a position in a list of world's best ever 10 batsmen of all generations.

I feel that the persons who criticize him have seen only the second half of his career. In that period he has slowed down, changed his batting style and also got reliable partners with his side.

But in the first half, he was alone,took full batting responsibility in his shoulder and batted with much domination against all bowlers across the world.

regards,

bbhavan

[amalji]

Originally Posted by bbhavan

Recently I got a chance to watch him play at the last Ranji trophy match at Wankhade. ( He was fielding then.) And I was astonished to see the commitment and intensity shown by him in the field. It was really an eye opener for me to see the passion of a man who was doing his work for the last 30 years intensely and has already acclaimed a position in a list of world's best ever 10 batsmen of all generations.

Yeah, that is what makes him so special. And the way he still runs his runs at the age of 39 is a lesson in itself for any youngster.

But, getting the kind of exposure that he gets, there would be always someone in some part of the world who will have a view that he does it all because it increases his personal fitness than the contribution towards the team.

Originally Posted by bbhavan

I feel that the persons who criticize him have seen only the second half of his career. In that period he has slowed down, changed his batting style and also got reliable partners with his side.

But in the first half, he was alone,took full batting responsibility in his shoulder and batted with much domination against all bowlers across the world.

regards,

bbhavan

He adapted to the team requirement and the continuous injuries that he has to go through in the late 90s. The greatness lies in the fact that inspite of all that, he was still a match winner, scored the runs at almost the same pace, even though he was not as attacking or aggressive as before.

[Ohh!Oxygen]

"The end justifies means"
He is the God of Indian cricket and retiring without a world cup would be shame on anybody's career. He got his photo holding the world cup for his drawing room, waited for a year and half and when he realised things are not working out, he hung up in ODI. Looks natural progression to me.
Trust me, with millions of over emotional cricket fans in a country like India, where every move you make is on front page all news papers and headlines of tv channels, I would give full marks to Tendulkar for maintaining his composure.
As spectactors, who can forget the period of India cricket TV when "Tendulkar gets out = India looses the match" and TVs turned off. After of Sarjah cup final, Shane Warne's comment about Tendulkar hitting him sixes in his nightmares!!! How many batsmen can do that?
World crcket would have never been the same without Tendulkar and I respect his judgement call on his retirement.

[mallumowgli]

Some people just because they have a Keyboard in front of them type whatever they want. Mr. Travelwriter - that verbose post without any understanding of what cricket has been all about these 20 years - Is it just to grab attention, to shout over rooftops to say "Hey, here I am - I am different, I know better and all you guys are morons"? Have you followed cricket at all? I know many guys who do not adulate Sachin much - but what you said was just childish attention grabbing gibberish. Of all the 100s and 100s of matches that India has played, you were able to remember Srinath-Kumble partnership..of all things!! Yes that was a good one - no disrespect, but completely pointless in the current context. Kapil's innings and VVS's innings were great, but in no way belittles Sachin's record. Just because Sachin was a legend doesnt mean that other players in India should not play or should not have better records!! That was a ridiculous point to make!!

And AR Rehman is a musician, whether you like it or not...and you may call SRK whatever you want, I would call him a movie actor

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

I'm leaving this game with his retirement.

May sound meaningless to many- but yes, its MY choice. :-) Afterall, without meaningless emotions, life wouldn't be fun without the micheal jacksons, rajnikants etc of our world now, would it?

weird you would stop watching a game you love because one person left the game. true MJs and Rajinis of the world bring forth such adulation amongst fans but one does not stop listening to music after MJ died or stop watching movies after Rajini stops making movies.

Let the game always stay above individuals no matter how great they were/are. Otherwise the game can only suffer. Especially in team sports like cricket.

I ain't no cricket fan. But this Tnedulkar retire-don't retire issue is too good to pass for someone on the sidelines.