When The God Chokes, It Takes Ten To Tango

After all the ooh-ing and aah-ing over 7/13 by anybody who has flicked a television remote to mid-wicket, a simple but uncomfortable truth confronts the Indian team and fan. Why doesn't Sachin Tendulkar, the world's greatest batsman, feature in contemporary cricket's greatest Test match and one-day wins, in both of which India made the impossible possible? As former South African vice-captain Craig Mathews says: "I wonder if Tendulkar has not become an ordinary batsman from the extraordinary one he was."

It is probably a question that is gnawing Sachin too, although the paid pipers of ESPN-Star Sports will scream he is above all that. But if you are a bonzer who has collected certificates from Don Bradman downwards, it is reasonable to ask why Sachin has scores of just 10 and 10 in the two innings of Test Match No 1,535 (Calcutta) and 14 in one-dayer No 1,856 (Lord's). It can be argued, as indeed it must, that a team that can win even when Sachin does not click has a lot going for it. That it only proves India is not a one-man team as V.V.S. Laxman first, and Mohammed Kaif and Yuvraj Singh now, have shown. And, that no batsman, howsoever great, can be expected to carry the burden of a billion every time he takes guard. Moreover, it would be unreasonable to judge a sterling batsman with 20,000 international runs and over 50 centuries on the basis of just two matches.

True, true, true, and true. But, and this is the crucial difference here, at the Oriental and Occidental homes of cricket, Sachin had a chance to stop INS India from sinking. Both times, it must be recorded, he failed royally. A second dampener is Sachin's failures in the 'grand finals'. For a man with 11,505 runs and 33 centuries in 295 matches (average 44.42), Sachin has just 145 runs from the last seven finals India has played in (average 20.7), with 69 as his highest. It is possible that without Sachin's performances in the league matches, India wouldn't even have entered those finals. But why does our man come up short when it comes to the crunch?

A more worrying aspect, if you are a Sachin fan, is that his last century in a one-day final came in the 1998-99 series at Sharjah. He hit centuries in the three finals previous to that—India won all those four encounters. The correlation between a champagne Sachin showing and an India victory is obvious. In the 13 finals India has won since his debut, Sachin averages 89.10. In the 14 finals India has lost, Sachin averages a lowly 25.64. It is this conventional wisdom that we are doomed if Sachin doesn't boom that was thrown out of Lord's on Saturday the 13th. Indeed, by achieving 326 not with scorching sixers and furious fours, but by stealing singles, turning ones into twos, and twos into overthrows, Kaif and Yuvraj have shown a nation of idol-worshippers that, in cricket, it takes ten to tango. And that it ain't over, as Navjot Sidhu might put it, till the Fat Sardarni does the bhangra in Bulandshahr.