He finally gets his hundredth hundred. And 99 to 100 has been the hardest haul. No two centuries of Sachin have been separated by such a length of time…except the first and second. This incredible journey of centuries began with his first Test century against England at Old Trafford in August 1990, and then a long 17 months later for his second one against Australia in January 1992. But nobody really cared then.
The hundredth hundred started out with being an obscure statistic that was immediately lapped up the media. Despite expert commentators shouting themselves hoarse – that such a record doesn’t make sense, that we have never counted combined centuries across different formats of the game – they could not stem the hysteria that quickly developed around this “record”. Out of thin air, a brand new Mt. Everest was created for God Tendulkar to climb. And being the sublime genius-sportsman he is, he proceeded to oblige…the media, the sport and all his billions of adoring fans. Okay, let’s do it!
This quest, this conquest of the final frontier – to go where no man has gone before and possibly never will – put Sachin in the hottest, most glaring spotlight of a lifetime spent in the spotlight. Talk about a goldfish existence – the fish has achieved all possible feats, and then again gets caught up into the one last hurray…with a one and a half billion eyes on him. I say one and a half billion because Sachin is past being India’s National Treasure – he is cricket’s international treasure and all cricketing nations were as vicariously absorbed in this absurd achievement.
Now these achievements don’t happen just like that. Sport, unlike the Movies, is real life. And a Sport Hero is a real life super hero. There are no retakes in life, and definitely not in Sport. At least in our everyday lives, our mistakes are lost in humdrum of the ordinary. In Sport, and international level, globally televised sport at that, these mistakes, these lost chances, these failures are magnified to the hugest possible degree, and replayed again and again. But Tendulkar ploughed on. The media and the fans – their emotions wildly oscillating, between Sachin’s a GOD to why doesn’t he just let go, give up, ride off into the sunset… Meanwhile, the Indian Cricket team was having a horrible time as well. After the spectacular World Cup Victory, we’ve been on a losing streak like no other. Get thrashed in two away series, win the home series, much team discord and infighting, much talk of seniors making way…and then Dravid’s sudden decision to retire, only to add more grist to the mill. And through all this, every match being hyped up to be the Hundredth Hundred, that being our only solace!
Now I quote Sachin upon getting his hundredth hundred…
“I felt even after 22 years the cricket god was testing me…”
“I will be honest, I was frustrated at times, but I never gave up”
“You can never plan your hundreds, if I could, I would have been something else”
“I came close so many times…I just didn’t know why it was not coming”
And finally the killer…”It was difficult, those who haven’t gone through it won’t know how difficult it was”.
As always, there is criticism about the setting in which this hundredth hundred happened – against Bangladesh, playing too slowly, resulting in India losing, again. Blah, blah, blah…talk is cheap 🙂 If you stop and think – of the context, of the journey, of the achievement, of the pressure, of the reality and of the humility – of this hundredth hundred, you would realize how tiny you are…and how alone he must feel!
But – the pressure is now off. There are truly no worlds left to conquer. Maybe now we should let him have some real fun.
SAMEER NAIR 