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Journalism of Courage
The MAN
The photograph is memory, blessing, reminder. In his Melbourne hotel room, as bare as a monk8217;s, just two suitcases, a music system, pads, the photograph lies face down, as if he8217;d rather not show it to you. Understand please, it8217;s private.
Every other part of his world, almost, he has to share. Since the boy was forced to be a man at 16, his sublime gifts illuminating stadiums in his land and beyond, he has become public property.
Sachin Tendulkar can8217;t open his front door and walk down a street in India. 8216;8216;That is a little difficult,8217;8217; he says, almost bashfully, as if somehow that8217;s his fault. He can8217;t walk into a cinema hall, instead having to call up friends who are kind enough to arrange a private viewing for him. In India, this is not news, we take our imprisonment of him for granted, we forget how tightly we handcuff him to our expectation.
Tendulkar may leave the field, but for India he is always performing, always expected to play God. 8220;The only place I don8217;t have to worry about what I say or what I do is when I8217;m with my family,8221; he says, and it a statement of some poignance.
From him, all things are possible. Days after Matthew Hayden8217;s record 380, during the Mohali Test against New Zealand, a poster hung in the wind. On it, among other things, is written 8216;Sachin, 3818217;. The 8220;not out8221; suggests what we think of him: there is no limit to miracles he can conjure. Weeks ago, during the tri-series in India, surrounded by a cacophony of the crazed, even Adam Gilchrist, standing close to the stumps, asks him: 8220;How do you handle this?8221; How indeed?
Tendulkar8217;s beauty is two-fold and it is, alas, often a forgotten beauty. It lies in the fact that despite the shackles of a billion expectations, he can still free his arms and bat himself into history. On the field his pursuit of greatness so priestly pure it is almost, well, Sampras-ian.
The resemblance is more than passing. When Tendulkar speaks of Pete Sampras perhaps his words somewhat echo a personal philosophy: 8220;What I like is his consistency, his concentration, he8217;s not bothered what people are thinking about him, all that he8217;s bothered about is playing good tennis and being competitive and I feel that8217;s remarkable.8221;
Of course, he is not so easily slotted, this man whose cricketing friends are Shane Warne and Brian Lara, players whose brilliance matches his but whose occasional sinning jars with his saintliness. He is, oddly one might think, enamoured with the tempestuous John McEnroe, exclaiming that 8220;I like the way he loses his temper8221;. Perhaps he notices the interviewer8217;s unhinged jaw and swiftly adds: 8220;It shows how desperately he wants to win all the time.8221;
Perhaps he owns a sneaky admiration for these free spirits, as if there is a part of him, too, that cries to let go, to express himself more fully, to be an occasional scoundrel who sneaks a smoke in the toilets after school hours. But the rebel in him, if it exists, is tightly leashed, powerfully bound as he is to duty.
There is something compelling about Tendulkar8217;s cool temper, in his ability to be a superstar yet be unencumbered by any aura, unburdened by any arrogance and untainted by scandal. Expectation has never been an excuse to fuss, or openly fret, to damn the opposition or to be petulant in defeat. He is reluctant to carp about pressure, whine about lost privacy, aware he is rich and famous and thus fortunate. Still, it is strange that we applaud the cricketer too much and the man too little. We celebrate the runs, but, in a way, it is his decency, his poise, that is even more staggering. His life has been proof that the gentleman warrior is not a contradiction.
It8217;s the photograph, you see. The picture of the gentle professor and poet that he carries with him. It is a portrait of his father, Ramesh, whose passing in 1999 during the World Cup hit him like a fist in the solar plexus. Understand, it8217;s not you whose standards he8217;s worried about living up to, it8217;s that man8217;s.
8220;My father was an amazing person. He never lost his temper, never ever shouted at me,8221; he says, his quiet voice even quieter. His father spoke to him about conduct, about the value of being good people, and the son looked up and saw the man he wanted to be. 8220;I always felt that if I could be half of what he is 8230; I8217;d be a very good person in life.8221;
His father never watched him at the ground. Neither does his family. 8220;They can8217;t take the pressure,8221; he says. And he smiles.
The BATSMAN
Australia has been more than opponent to Tendulkar, in a sense it partially shaped him. In 1991, he arrives here, 18 years old, 11 Tests young, an incomplete genius. He scores 8230; no wait, he carves, he composes, centuries in Sydney 148 not out and Perth 114, suggesting the poet8217;s son is a lyricist of some quality in his own right.
For him these centuries are defining moments. 8220;Scoring a 100 in Australia for a youngster who8217;s trying to establish his name, I think it8217;s so important. The moment you get runs in Australia you kind of become a known figure all over the cricketing world. Let8217;s accept they8217;re probably the toughest side to score against, and somebody who can handle that can surely handle the rest of the world.8221;
After 8,882 runs, 31 Test centuries and 36 fifties in 107 Tests, and after 12,685 runs and 36 centuries and 64 fifties in 321 one-day internationals, numbers whose constant flow erases most arguments on best batsman, we can with some surety claim he has done his share of handling the world.
His batting walks the line between risk and calculation, adventure and science, part D8217;Artagnan, part geometry professor. Always he seems to own time, as if the ball is arriving at him in slow motion, but his inadvertent explanation of how much time is astonishing.
Occasionally, he will find himself in zone, a moment of purity, when his mind is empty of conflict or indecision, when all he sees is the cricket ball. Let me explain, he generously offers, why this helps. 8220;At times, you end up playing two balls at a time, not one. Because you8217;re expecting an outswinger, you8217;re ready for it, and when the ball is bowled you play the ball that you are expecting.8221; Then, suddenly, he realises it is not an outswinger, and then he starts reading the next ball, the real ball. 8220;The first ball you have prepared for, you8217;ve kind of played it in your mind, you8217;ve figured it8217;s not an outswinger, so you say let me concentrate on this ball the real one, which has hit the seam and is coming back to me. Often a fraction of time is wasted and that fraction is more than enough to cause damage.8221;
8220;But in that zone your mind is blank, you are not expecting anything and so you have plenty of time to play it.8221;
Like only the gifted can, he does not so much dominate bowlers but occasionally bend them to his will. 8220;Sometimes,8221; he says, 8220;you can force a bowler to bowl to particular areas. If he keeps bowling outside off, you can make him change that.8221; This game within a game, this contest of will and patience, is viewed clearest by an evening in Adelaide on the 1999-2000 tour. McGrath is bowling, where else but outside off stump, setting up some grand seduction.
Tendulkar the monk sees no attraction in this. 8220;He bowled seven maidens or so in a row, bowled good line and length. I thought this was part of their strategy. It was 45 minutes after tea, I had to survive, and I said, OK, fine, if they8217;re going to test my patience I8217;m going to test theirs and I kept leaving.8221; He scores 12 in 69 balls with a single boundary.
This circumspection, incredibly, wins him criticism. 8220;I remember plenty of people said, 8216;he should play his natural game8217;. But I think you can8217;t always be in fourth gear, you have to learn to change gears. There are times when you have to be in first gear and wait for bowlers to make mistakes.8221; He knows the value of waiting the evening out, making
McGrath alter strategy. Next morning he hits McGrath for a cover-drive four soon enough, and scores 49 more runs in 64 balls with seven boundaries. It8217;s a new day, a new game, a new gear.
For all his rivers of runs, for some it is not enough, leading critics to claim he has not won adequate matches for India. And though his face doesn8217;t show it, his answer suggests it gnaws at his ego.
Eventually, he says, 8220;Let8217;s take our last few victories8221;, and he lists them and his contribution: v Australia, first Test, Chennai, 1998, he got 155 not out; v West Indies, second Test, Trinidad, 2002, he got 117; v Zimbabwe, first Test, Bulawayo, 2001, he got 74 and 36 not out; v Australia, third Test, Chennai, 2001, he got 126; v England, third Test, Headingley, 2002, he got 193.
In a way, whatever he does this tour will be insufficient for some, but like all burdens he wears it with an outward calm. When he walks in to bat, he will hear India8217;s plea, its prayer, but it will not slow his stride. 8220;I don8217;t think about it. That so many people have come, or that millions are watching on TV, you can8217;t be thinking of that. You notice when you8217;re playing well and the crowd goes 8216;we want four8217;. But when the bowler runs it, you blank it out.8221;
So he stands there, eyes focused, body collected. The ball is delivered. And then, like some artful magic, we are transported into a batting universe of his own beautiful construction. This is Sachin Tendulkar8217;s world.
