Bradman was the greatest, but arguably in the world of cricket, Sachin is the biggest.
Sachin played the game internationally for over 20 years, scored more Test centuries, more one-day international centuries, most runs, more Tests than anyone. A career like that is going to make for a pretty interesting biography.
Of course, reading a biography, you’re going to hope that it is more fact than fiction. And as some commentators have pointed out, the non-fiction element to Sachin’s book appears to be more accurately referred to as non-existent.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Malcolm Knox has already laid out strong evidence to put forward a compelling case questioning the veracity of Sachin’s allegation that he and Greg Chappell met at Sachin’s home for a lengthy period about a seeming coup d’etat of the Indian Cricket Team.
The Roar’s very own Glenn Mitchell has highlighted multiple instances where Sachin’s powers of recollection can at the very least be questioned.
Most notably, with a significance more far-reaching than any tiff with Greg Chappell, Sachin’s re-written history regarding one of the more disgraceful instances in sport I have ever had the dishonour to witness, the 2008 SCG Test match, has reared the ugly head of that black mark on sport and painted Australia and world cricket officialdom as very much the villains.
In my mind, ‘Monkeygate’, as much as Sachin’s latest version of the event, says more about Sachin’s character than his ability with the bat ever has.
It is a deep and senseless shame that the 2008 SCG Test is remembered by words such as racism, disciplinary hearing, suspensions, unsportsmanlike conduct, and umpiring imbecility. The words ‘great victory’ and ‘16th win in a row’ have been thrown to the wayside.
Sachin’s painting of the whole picture comes across like this. India were a team with their backs against the wall as the umpires worked against them in a Test that Australia was employing underhand tactics to win.
Ultimately, Australia won, with heavy umpire assistance, while employing cheating tactics in claiming illegitimate catches, while poor Harbhajan Singh was branded a racist for having an Indian term heard incorrectly by violent and abusive Australians.
If I have that summary of Monkeygate as Sachin sees it incorrect, I am happy to be corrected.
But Sachin has made it very well in life through cricket. He is in a position of power that no other player has ever wielded.
In the most simplest terms, and to use the terminology of the Australian Prime Minister – the Indians were the goodies, the Australians and cricket officials were the baddies.
And Sachin’s true character has shone through for the self-serving individual his bat seemed to successfully cover up. Further, the multiple contradictions and hypocrisy that Sachin’s version of events throw up are startling and concerning.
Firstly, if Mike Procter has any sense about him, he’ll be calling up a good defamation attorney and seeing if he’s got a case.
Mike Procter, a former Test cricketer himself, was in a no-win situation in 2008. Had he found in favour of Singh, the ICC would have been absolutely pilloried for not taking a stand on racism and submitting to the Indian hierarchy.
In finding in favour of Symonds, Procter has then had to live with the ongoing backlash from the likes of Sachin who refuse to take the referee’s decision and move on with their life.
By referring to the whole hearing as a farce, thereby attacking Procter’s own character and integrity, Sachin has shown complete and utter disrespect to the game that has done very well by him.
Beyond Procter, what of the multiple Australian players whose character Sachin has wasted no opportunity in tarnishing? What of Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds and Adam Gilchrist?
That’s right, Adam Gilchrist, one of the most highly respected gentlemen to ever grace a cricket field. A human being who at one point in his career was in fact criticised for attempting to have too much honour, when he walked in a World Cup semi final.
And then whatever you want to say about Ponting and Clarke in that incident, where Symonds is involved, surely a bit of empathy or understanding for why he reacted as he did that day.
Remember, he had been subjected to some of the most intense racial vilification ever known to man mere months earlier on Indian shores. You can Google pictures of Indian supporters making monkey poses directed at Symonds. Even Sachin cannot re-write that.
So that Symonds would have been somewhat sensitive about further racism, irrespective of who was delivering it, is understandable.
However, not according to Sachin. Symonds, along with the rest of the Australian team, is merely a vulgar abusive cricketer who finally got what was coming to him after giving it to Singh all match and then over-reacted by crying wolf.
Yet in all of this, Sachin has done little to answer accusations against him that he in fact changed his version of events, so as to protect Singh.
Startling.
And then Sachin advises that threats to abandon the tour were very real.
I imagine that there are some in Indian cricket who read that and swallowed a little harder, particularly given that they are considering action against the West Indies for doing that very thing.
However, as the BCCI holds the position that abandoning a tour cannot be justified, there is one of their very own saying that India would have been justified in doing just that.
So the great and eminent Sachin has spoken.
Just as Sachin manufactured a legacy with the bat (for instance, seeking a game against Bangladesh to get that 100th hundred, making sure his 200th Test match was in India), now he has done so with the pen.
At the start of this article, I pointed out that Bradman was the greatest, Sachin is the biggest.
And the thing about being the single biggest influence on a game globally is that what you say, do and write, is taken by some as gospel.
So by writing what Sachin has, he would have known that his words will be written and now, as a result, in the eyes of many, he is protected, at the expense of so many.
Given the multiple inaccuracies already highlighted by more notable commentators, it now appears that Sachin has re-written history for his own satisfaction.
The ever honourable Sachin Tendulkar, who mere moments after touring our country and accepting our hospitality as he was inducted as a Bradman honouree at the SCG, he has gone home and tarnished the reputations of so many of our own greats.
Good luck to him.
Sachin, though he is the biggest, has made sure that with his personal attacks on others, he will never be the greatest.
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