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Sachin Tendulkar, as a batsman and as a person, has inspired me the most to date. I have seen him since my earliest memories of cricket when I was just three or four years old until today, where he is playing his last Test match.
I have never ever imagined a person who can be so calm, down to earth and have no attitude whatsoever after 24 years of successful international cricket.
In his 24-year career Sachin has not said a word about his critics, just let his bat answer all the questions.
These are the two important points which influenced me the most about Sachin.
In the game of cricket there have been lot of standout performers, but of all Sachin was special and different for various reasons.
At 16 he started his international cricket career and was exceptional, facing one of the best pace bowling attacks in Pakistan with the likes of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
He scored his second Test hundred in Perth, which is considered the fastest track in world cricket.
When Mark Taylor spoke about his first impression about Sachin when he toured Australia in 1991-1992, he said generally Indian batsmen are not that comfortable playing flat batted shots, preferring to play with a full face of the bat and tend to get caught in slip cordon.
But Sachin was different, and very fluent in playing both cross-batted and flat-batted shots, which explains why Sachin was prepared when he went to play in Australia.
Another important point worth mentioning is that he was he was very comfortable in playing both on front foot and back foot, which was a rare sight in Indian team at that time.
I have heard a lot of people criticising Sachin, saying whenever he scores India loses.
Though it was proved wrong by stats, until date I have never understood what Sachin could have done for other people not playing well.
I remember Shane Warne talking about the Indian team in early 1990s, saying that India was a defensive team who would prefer not to lose rather than winning a game.
Sachin played in that time and tried his best for the team to win, and if you look at Sachin’s batting at that time he was always taking the attack to the bowlers, whoever he was facing, which was not the case with the other batsmen.
If you forget this, let us look into some games where India lost when Sachin scored runs.
Let us start with the Coca-Cola Cup in Sharjah, where India required 237 in 46 overs to qualify for the final.
Sachin fought single-handedly and made sure India qualified for the final, with Sachin scoring 143 and next highest score in the Indian team was just 39 runs.
In 1999 India was playing Pakistan at Chennai, a game in which Sachin scored 136 in a chase of 271.
When he got out India was 17 runs short of victory with three wickets in hand, but the team collapsed for just five more runs – what could Sachin do about that?
In that innings only three batmen from Indian team reached double figures while rest fumbled in single digits.
If you consider the chase of 350 against Australia in fourth ODI in 2009/2010, Sachin scored 175 runs and he made sure required run rate never reached eight in a chase of 350.
But when Sachin departed India had to score 19 runs in 17 balls in a powerplay but again the team fumbled.
In the whole Indian innings there was only one half century in the chase of 350.
Sachin gave his best for the team and if the team doesn’t win even when he scored for the team, in my view he should be respected for what he has done.
In the time Sachin played for India, India have produced lot of other excellent players of cricket like Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly, but for me Sachin was special because Sachin has played with three generations of players.
The last player to retire in the team Sachin made his debut was in 1999, just three years after Dravid and Ganguly’s debuts.
Sachin and Dravid were born in the same year but by the time Dravid made his debut Sachin had already been in Test cricket for seven years, which is more than most of the present day cricketers’ entire careers.
What I mean say here is playing at interntional level at an age of 16 was a lot different from playing international cricket at 23, where most of the other Indian greats started their careers.
The most important point I like about Sachin is he changed his batting according to the conditions and situations.
When he was young he was attacking and when he became a senior member in the team he reduced his aggression for the team which helped youngsters build their innings around him.
If you remember his ODI debut as a opener or the innings in played in Sharjah, you can clearly see what a destructive player he was but he then changed his batting according to the team requirements as needed.
The most important reason for Sachin’s success for all these years was his preparation for a match which was amazing.
His preparation was no different when he was playing a Ranji Trophy match or a Test match.
He always knew what bowlers were going to bowl at him, and he was ready for it all the time.
In 1997/98 when Australia was touring India, Sachin knew it would be a challenge to face Shane Warne on Indian tracks.
So to prepare for playing against Warne, especially when Warne was bowling around the wicket onto footmarks, he asked Laxman Sivarama Krishnan to bowl to him from around the wicket and practiced.
He also asked left-arm bowlers to bowl on the rough to be prepared for when he was going to face Warne.
His preparation never guaranteed the result – the perfect example was the first-innings dismissal in the Chennai Test match when he was caught at slip by Taylor off Warne, but his determination to perform well never waned.
In that match Laxman was said to have seen Sachin crying when he gave his wicket away cheaply to Warne, but in the same game in the second innings to went and scored 150-plus runs on a spinning Chennai track on day three and four, which was remarkable.
Sachin has influenced a lot of youngsters to play cricket – how many of the current players have been inspired by Sachin?
If you ask them, the answer will be all of them. MS Dhoni, the oldest of all the present Indian team, was eight years old when Sachin debuted against Pakistan in 1989.
Sachin is an inspiration for all the youngsters to grow up and develop as a cricketer.
He was an example for what could a person become with passion and hard work.
Playing for 24 years is no joke. If a person plays as long as 24 years he is supposed to create lot of records and Sachin did it, but Sachin is a common man with love and passion towards cricket with an extremely hard-working nature to achieve his dream of playing for his nation.
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