By Daniel Brettig
November 15th 2009 @ 1:21am
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Sachin Tendulkar – the lonely master
In a country of one billion people, one is the loneliest number. For as long as he has bestrode the cricket world, Sachin Tendulkar has dealt with the private pain of being an awesomely gifted batsman and a consummate professional in a team that has so often failed to follow suit.
As he reflected on 20 years as an Indian player, having made his debut as a 16-year-old against Pakistan at Karachi in 1989, Tendulkar revealed the hurt he felt whenever a great innings was not accompanied by an Indian victory.
It is a sensation he has had to get used to, for there have been so many Tendulkar masterpieces in defeat, from an immaculate 114 at Perth in 1992 in a team that succumbed by 300 runs, to a masterly 175 in the three-run loss to Australia at Hyderabad earlier this month.
All have caused the same mess of mixed emotions for Tendulkar, and his ability to forge on has won him a sea of admirers not just in India, but everywhere.
Asked if it was a lonely experience, Tendulkar paused.
“I have never been asked this question before,” he said.
“But, actually, yes you feel bad because I’ve done well but the team doesn’t haven’t well – I play for the team and it is not about individuals.
“You’ve got to win as a team.
“So you are not excited and you cannot share that wonderful moment with people because you’ve lost the game.
“It is a difficult thing.
“On the brighter side when you have one billion people to share your joy there is nothing better than that.
“But when that doesn’t happen you look forward to the next game and try and make sure that you perform better as a team and do something special which can make all of us smile.”
Among the many characteristics that have made Tendulkar great, two stand out as reminders that talent, even genius, is nothing without humility and diligence.
Though he is as naturally gifted as any batsman of the modern era, Tendulkar has never once presumed to know what is best for his batting without first seeking out advice.
In 1992, the same tour as that Perth innings, Tendulkar floored David Boon by seeking out the Australian for some counsel on how to combat the West Indies’ fearsome pace barrage, at that time including Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall and Courtney Walsh.
Boon’s response was to exclaim “YOU want advice from ME?”, but he proceeded to explain what he had learned about shot selection and judgment while an 18-year-old Tendulkar listened intently.
“The only time I had played a West Indian was when we played county cricket against Derbyshire (in 1990) when Ian Bishop was there, and I played one exhibition game in Canada against West Indies,” Tendulkar said.
“But other than that in an international match I hadn’t played, in Australia we were playing a triangular series where the West Indies joined us and they had some terrific players, world-class fast bowlers.
“I’d watched Boon quite closely, and I thought I should be picking up things from the top players in the world and I wanted to get as much information as possible and become a better cricketer.
“I thought it was a good chance to speak to him, and get to know how to face certain bowlers on Australian tracks.”
Six years later and Tendulkar was preparing to face the wiles of Shane Warne in a home Test series for the first time.
It was here, in the weeks and days leading up to the first Test at Chennai, that his unrivalled knack for meticulous training was so wonderfully demonstrated.
Discerning that he had never really dealt with Warne’s pet tactic of attacking a batsman from around the wicket with sharp spin out of the footmarks, Tendulkar roughed up patches outside leg stump in numerous nets at home in Mumbai and later at Chennai.
He then had a number of local legspinners, and former Test tweaker Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, bowl around the wicket into the rough to devise a way around a tactic that had flummoxed many batsmen.
“In 1998 I prepared differently, we were practising in Chennai and before that I practised in Mumbai,” Tendulkar recalled.
“All my Ranji Trophy colleagues, I used to ask them to bowl around the wicket into the rough, because that was something which I hadn’t played for a long time, in spite of having been around for almost nine years at that sage, I hadn’t played any legspinner that would bowl around the wicket to me, in the rough, so I made all the bowlers do that.
“Then when we went to Chennai, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan did that to me, he gave wonderful practice.
“So all those sessions really helped and basically the purpose behind that was just to get used to those angles and the areas, and identify which are the areas from which I can attack and which are the areas I need to defend.”
The result was a match-winning innings of 155 that thoroughly curtailed Warne, and a stark reminder of the rare thought Tendulkar has put into maintaining his genius.
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