As Tendulkar turns 40, Rajdeep Sardesai relives key moments in God’s career through tweets – Part II

Although he recently took sanyas from Twitter, Rajdeep Sardesai made an exception and offered to commemorate Sachin’s 40th birthday celebrations by going down memory lane and tweeting key moments in the little master’s glittering career. With an Old Monk in hand, soulful music in the background, and footage of the Sachin’s greatest knocks, Rajdeep began his tweet-marathon:

(Read Part I of this series here)

2001 Winter Tour of South Africa: The final day of the second Test at Port Elizabeth witnessed a row that threatened to split cricket along racial lines. Match referee and former England Test cricketer, Mike Dennes, in a decision that reverberated like a thunderclap across the cricketing world, penalized Sachin for ball tampering while Saurav was handed a one match suspended sentence. As Cricinfo writer, Martin Williamson, recalls in this article: On the fourth day Denness informed India he would be banning Tendulkar for one match, suspended for a year, for his actions. Ganguly was to be given a similar suspended punishment for not controlling his team -Wisden noted that considering he had been suspended and/or fined three times in the previous 12 months “he was fortunate to get away with only a suspended ban for not upholding the spirit of the game”.

Virender Sehwag was to be banned from the third and final Test for claiming a catch off Jacques Kallis that had clearly bounced and for attempting to intimidate the umpire by charging at him, as well as using “crude or abusive language”. Batsman Shiv Sunder Das, wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta and spinner Harbhajan Singh were to be handed suspended one-Test bans for excessive appealing. All six were also fined 75% of their match fees. While action against Tendulkar and Ganguly was instigated by Denness, the other four players had been cited by the on-field umpires.

The otherwise dismal tour (hardly news, pretty much every overseas tour those days was dismal) had a silver lining: A batsmen in the mould of the master had been discovered. As a new wave of talented youngsters – Zaheer, Yuvi, Bhajji – burst into the squad under the inspirational leadership of Ganguly. A new era had dawned on Indian cricket.

2003 was Sachin’s annus horribilis as he was dragged into an unseemly controversy over seeking tax exemption for a Ferrari.

2003 World Cup, South Africa: In 2003, under the leadership of Saurav Ganguly, the Indian team embarked on the World Cup campaign.

Tendulkar, as always, reserved his best, for WC matches.

Once again, he saved his best for the old enemy, with that back foot six over third man against Shoaib Akhtar, being the coup de grace. That stroke is now etched in the minds of millions of cricket fans.

Save the defeat to Australia in the league stage, Team India roared under Sourav Ganguly, and thrashed every other team in the league stage as well as in the business end of the tournament (2003 was also the time when Ashish Nehra wasn’t the caricature that he is now. His spell to England in the league stage is unforgettable). For the first time since 1983, Team India entered the finals of an ICC World Cup tournament. It would have to get past the invincible Australians to lift the cup.

The need of the hour was aggression. A young and fired up Zak answered the call and opened the Indian bowling, breathing fire with his words and intense stares and er… not so much his deliveries. Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden took full toll of the Indian bowling, putting up a frenetic century stand for no loss. Just when Indian hopes began to dwindle, Team India broke the opening stand, heaved a sigh of relief, and hoped for a change in fortunes, only for Ricky Ponting to come in and slam a devastating 140*. India would never recover from the onslaught, and neither would Indian fans until years later.

It seemed, Sachin’s dream of winning the World Cup would have to wait a little longer.

March 29th, 2004, Multan: Labelled as the “Tendulkar clone” for his exhilarating and belligerent display of batting, with an array of strokes as similar to Tendulkar’s as Himesh Reshammiya’s songs are to each other, Virender Sehwag created history on this day, by being the first and by far, the only batsman in India to have scored a triple century in test cricket. Sachin himself had a ball of a time, looking all set to notch yet another double century, before the then skipper Rahul Dravid declared and left the master hanging on 194*

However, all was not well for Team India, as Sachin Tendulkar soon suffered from what was arguably the biggest and most serious injury in his career – the Tennis elbow. Having been out of action for almost until the end of the year, Indian cricket began to get a tad insipid, and even depressing, for some.

14th May, 2008, Mumbai: The summer of 2008 marked a great chapter in India’s cricketing history – the inception of the Indian Premier League, one which would go on to become the synonym for entertainment over the years. Sachin Tendulkar was made the captain of the Mumbai Indians franchise, owned by Nita Ambani.

5th November 2009, Hyderabad: The 5th ODI of the India-Australia series was a run-fest even by modern day standards, with Australia setting India a mammoth target of 350. India fought back valiantly, falling short agonizing close to victory, at 347. The day, however, belonged to one man – Sachin Tendulkar – who scored a spectacular 175.

24th February 2010, Gwalior: There can hardly be an Indian who wouldn’t recognize the significance of this date and venue. Anyone who witnessed this spectacle live would treasure it as one of his/her life’s greatest moments. Those who witnessed it on television would not forget Ravi Shastri’s epic words – “First man on the planet to reach 200, and it’s a superman from India” Sachin Tendulkar beat Saeed Anwar’s record of 194, by scoring an impossible 200* against a power-packed South African bowling attack, led by Dale Steyn.

The World Cup 2011 finally began, amid furious anticipation and overwhelming expectations, staged as it was in India this time.

27th Feb, Bangalore: India faced its first real test against England in Bangalore, which ended in an exhilarating tie. The high-voltage thriller witnessed spectacular batting from Tendulkar as well as textbook leadership by Andrew Strauss, who rose to the occasion with 138. Piyush Chawla too, made a mark for himself in this game, albeit an infamous one, by giving away too many runs away in the 49th over.

India’s next big test was against the Proteas, and the legend that he is, Sachin delivered, by slamming 111. Sadly, however, the ill-fated fortune that read “India loses when Sachin scores a 100″ too, decided to deliver today, as South Africa won the match. If it was Piyush Chawla who did it for England, it was Ashish Nehra this time, who gifted away a touch too many runs to Robin Peterson.

30th March 2011, Mohali: When it comes to India, losing the World Cup is really not that big a deal as is losing to Pakistan in an ICC tournament. Epic match. Epic setting.  Epic stage of the tournament – the World Cup semi-final! In a pulsating and gut-wrenching encounter, Sachin won Indian hearts yet again with a gritty 85, followed by Pakistani fielders who gifted the Little Master as many as 4 lifelines.

2nd April, 2011: After 7 long years, India was once again in a World Cup final. ‘Will they be able to do it at least this time? Or will Sachin Tendulkar have to retire without ever getting to lift the World Cup?’ – that was the question on the mind of  every Indian. India had come to a standstill. One billion eyes were on the eleven men in blue in the Wankhede stadium.

The toss did not help Indian hearts one bit. Kumar Sangakkara called the toss as match referee Jeff Crowe flipped it into the air, but none in the center could hear the call over the deafening din at the stadium. The coin turned up heads, and both captains thought they’d won the toss. There was a re-toss, which Sangakkara won and promptly chose to bat first. The fact that no team had won the World Cup final batting first in the history of the game was  hardly music to Indian ears.

Zaheer Khan made up for his horrendous display in the 2003 World Cup final by bowling three maidens on the trot. The Lankans, however, rallied around Mahela Jayawardene’s classy century, and notched up an imposing 274. Imposing total for a final, but surely ‘chaseable’, thought the ever optimistic Indian fan.

Few overs into the game, hope turned to despair, as Lasith Malinga took out Indian openers Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar in quick succession. Devastating blows. But hardly any Indian  moved from his/her television set. For this wasn’t the Indian team of old. This team had steel.

Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli fought tooth and nail, scrambling hard for runs, defending when needed, and attacking when the opportunity presented itself, and slowly pulled India out from the pit Malinga had dug for her. Young Kohli could not carry on though, departing for a hard fought 35.

Enter Captain Dhoni. Captain Cool. Captain Fantastic.

If the long-haired Dhoni burst upon the international scene with his maiden T20 World Cup triumph, close-cropped Dhoni cemented his place in the annals of cricketing history as an inimitable, incomparable match-winner. Captain Dhoni swung the delivery of the match for a six and ever so coolly twirled the bat. Tears of happiness flooded a billion eyes, including that man, Sachin Tendulkar. Virat Kohli would later carry the master on his shoulders around the field, and sum up the day with aplomb by saying, “He has carried the nation for 21 years, it is time we carried him on ours”

The World Cup should ideally have released all pressure off Sachin Tendulkar, but the burden of expectations on the master only grew heavier, if one were to take the media at face value – the master’s 100th 100.  The master kept his fans waiting though.

Months later, Sachin still hadn’t delivered, now hardly ever getting close to the three figure mark. The media grew restless.

16th March 2012, Mirpur: The legend finally delivered against Bangladesh. India, however, lost the matchwhich resulted in the team not making the tournament finals. Well, who cares? Years later, people won’t remember the tournament, people won’t remember the match India lost supposedly because of Sachin’s slow ton, people might not even remember that Bangladesh ever played cricket, but this feat – a hundred hundreds – will stand the test of time.

19th July 2012: Mr. and Mrs. Tendulkar called on Sonia Gandhi one fine day, and hours later the nation learnt that the Master has been nominated to the Upper House by the Congress. Sachin Tendulkar accepted the honour, and went on to become a Rajya Sabha member, instantly building  expectations that he would bring in some much needed reforms in Cricket and other sports.

23rd December, 2012: Sachin retired from ODI cricket. 18426 runs at an average of 44.83 with 49 hundreds and a highest score of 200*. ‘Nuf said.

courtesy: The Unreal Times and Heartfelt thanks to Rajdeep Sardesai.

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