Today finally the day came when the ordained happened to the world of cricket! Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar took his rightful place as the highest run getter in all forms of the game.
The GOD has now collectively scored almost 30,000 runs at the highest level (some good ones don't score even half that much in first class form, forget the internationals!) against the best bowling opposition for almost four bowling generations - from Qadirs and Marshals to Wasim and Waqar to Donald, Warne and McGrath and now to Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar!
Countless media articles today and media space would have been reserved for the greatest sporting icon the country has ever seen. I will stick my neck out and say that he is the best the world would have ever seen! He has been blessed, hailed, wowed, etc. by one and all. This has to be the news of the year for us! Yes. This news is definitely much better than any political or economic dooms/busts/dawns news ... (pun intended).
Sachin Tendulkar is hailed as everything great right upto what I think of him as the GOD himself! But, this is only apt. He has been termed as I read in a news article about him - the living university for all the young sportspersons in India! It is so correct that he is an university.
Everything from handling pressure and expectations of a billion strong cricket crazy fanatics to working hard at your chosen field, to putting the cricket ahead of himself, his unjuries and his family - in every aspect, he has become a person to emulate. His mild mannerism and his humility only add to the halo around him. We love our heroes to be modest and Sachin is the epitome of modesty. Such humility residing in such a world class act only makes him bigger in the eyes of his devotees...
His humility is best characterised in his quick retort to a TV anchor when he mentioned to him of his greatness that he is only a normal human being playing cricket! Never mind your humility Sir, we know what you have given us. We can only be grateful to you for giving us the privilege of watching you, of experiencing what a great joy there is when someone as great as you bats. Thank you for being who you are. Mere mortals like me can only revere you. We can only aspire to try and imbibe your humility and your perseverance and your hard work in our petty lives. We can only aspire that we are able to make 1/1000th the effort you have made and we can only hope that our closed ones be as proud of us as your close to billion followers are!
I must admit that there have been some rotten grapes amongst us lovers of the game who have time and again riled HIS greatness and said unnecessarily horrible things about this modern day Bradman. I guess such is our love that we want Sachin to go out and score a century every time he leaves the boundary ropes towards the pitch. Hence, we want that like a good romantic tale, every victory be composed of its own little Sachin story. And the reality is not too far away from that. Another reason for the Sachin fairy tale to last forever!
Isn't it apt that Sachin should invent a stroke like the upper cut and say that it was his favourite stroke in one of his best centuries down under recently? Indeed, HE is the uppermost cut today when it comes to legends of the gentleman's game ....
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