If Tendulkar Isn't A Match-Winner, Who Is?

'Sachin Tendulkar never contributes substantially when the Indian team strikesgold.'

'How many of Tendulkar’s centuries have helped India?'

Cricket enthusiasts, including armchair and professional critics, have beenincreasingly casting aspersions on the world’s premier batsman following hisalleged lack of substantial contributions whenever the country requires biggerinnings from his otherwise blazing blade. While there may be a whiff of truth inthese allegations, facts present a different picture and Tendulkar emerges as atrue mascot.

A particular set of Tendulkar detractors hell-bent on portraying himpejoratively regardless of his innumerable tours de force that have broughtlaurels to the nation may have paid scant respect to his magnificent 141 in thesecond ODI at Rawalpindi simply because India still lost. They had a field daywhen the maestro failed to even open his account in the third at Peshawar,paving the way for Pakistan to go take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.Being an uncommonly great batsman, often compared with Don Bradman, it’sunderstandable enough if the hoi polloi come down hard on Tendulkar when he isdismissed for no score and consequently India also fails to win. But why blamehim for India’s defeat even after he makes a hundred?

The 'Master Blaster' has often been castigated for his 'inability' to 'lastlonger' and see India home. One journalist had the cheek to question him on thisafter India lost in Rawalpindi by 12 runs. 'Go home and check the scorebook,'was the pointed answer he received from a cool and composed Tendulkar. Indeed,it’s about time the doubting Thomases checked the Tendulkar facts and figuresbefore crucifying him. And even the usually cold statistics become wonderfullyvibrant in his case, according to noted statistician Tushar Trivedi.

India has won 165 and lost 149 of the 333 ODIs that Tendulkar has played.While 3 have ended in a tie, others have been abandoned for different reasons.Of his 13134 runs, 8085 have been in victories and 4620 in defeats.

When Tendulkar loses his wicket cheaply, especially for a blob, his dismissalis treated as a national calamity in this cricket-crazy country. And rightly so.In all, Tendulkar has been dismissed without scoring 15 times. That India haswon only three ODIs despite Tendulkar making a zero goes to show how heavily wedepend on him. India has not just lost on all the other 12 occasions, butliterally thrown in the towel in most of them.

Talking about Tendulkar’s 37 tons, 28 of them have been match-winningefforts, 8 in India’s defeats and 1 in an ODI abandoned due to rain. Beforethe game but vain effort at Rawalpindi, his 101 against South Africa atJohannesburg in a triangular tournament in 2001-02 had also come in a lostcause. The same fate had befallen India a month before when Zimbabwe won atJodhpur despite Tendulkar’s 146.

Tendulkar had really struck gold in the desert by smashing two successive,scintillating centuries in trying circumstances against Australia in Sharjah in1997-98. Yet, only one of them saw India triumph. The other, a majestic,superlative 143 in a day-night delight and braving a severe sand storm, may havecome in a lost battle but was enough to ensure that India entered the final.India lost to Sri Lanka at Delhi in a World Cup game in 1996 inspite ofTendulkar’s whirlwind 137 that included 5 sixes. This was the very match thatsaw the rise of Sanath Jayasuriya as an explosive one-day batsman.

Tendulkar, who made his international debut in Pakistan in 1989, had to waitfor 63 matches before scoring his maiden ODI hundred. He eventually opened hisaccount with a brilliant 110 against Australia at Colombo in the Singer Cuphosted by Sri Lanka in 1994. India, of course, won that particular match. Thistriggered off almost a century scoring spree as Tendulkar went on to make 6hundreds – a three-figure knock after every four innings, to be precise – inthe next few matches. What’s more, India won all of them. Another interestingstatistical snippet is that, beginning with the Titan Cup at home in 1996-97, heplayed seven prolific, match-winning innings, including 3 centuries, in as manymatches. His lowest score was 62.

To those who doubt Tendulkar’s ability to essay easy hundreds abroad, letit be emphasised that of his 37 three-figure innings in the shorter version ofthe game, 23 of them have been scored overseas. By the same token, 8644 of his13134 ODI runs have been made on foreign soil. Why, he has scored amind-boggling 1321 on the fast and flying pitches of South Africa alone. If thisis not greatness, what is?

To cap all these fascinating facts, figures and feats, the little big man hasjust completed a unique fifty. Well, the man-of-the-match award that he won forhis outstanding but unlucky effort in Rawalpindi was the fiftieth of hisglittering ODI career.

Indeed, not only that unnecessarily impatient, ignoramus scribe but all thosewho are fond of taking Tendulkar to task, need to 'go home and check thescorebook'. If Tendulkar isn’t a match-winner, who is?