Sachin ready for his own orbit

Now, on his first return to this neighbouring land, he prepares to leap into an orbit entirely his own: he has come within a century of Sunil Gavaskar’s record 34 Test hundreds. When he ran his hundredth run off a misfield in the 113th over of the match, he also notched up his 70th international hundred. Great things have been prophesied for Tendulkar, not the least of them 100 centuries.

The Tendulkar of the 21st century bears ample resemblence to his earlier self. Today, he did play a cover dive that in the West Indies would have been called ‘‘not a man move’’. A single shot in the post-lunch heat, and it was enough to make the day memorable.

In the mid-afternoon quiet — the crowds thinning, the scorers struggling to keep pace with tumbling records — it was a reminder of why Tendulkar’s batting is so redemptive even at a remove. The bat comes down straight, the ball racing away retains a quantum connection with the master’s followthrough. To watch is to be privileged.

A theory has done the rounds for far too long. In the nineties, it was said that Indians stepped gingerly out of their defeat-driven lives to project their aspirations on the Bombay batsman. In a scrapyard of failures, he was the sole purveyor of a winning feeling.

It was unfair. It confined the man to his excesses, to his matchwinning innings. It condemned us to impassivity, to undiscerning collection of runs. Tendulkar has been special not just because runs flow off his bat, but because in his batting he’s given beauty a new form. He has honoured the legacy of earlier masters, he has respected the grammar of his art. But he has imparted to it a new idiom.

When Don Bradman said he saw his young self in Sachin, he would have been alluding as much to similarities in strokes as to Tendulkar’s verve in inflating the boundaries of perfection. How that’s changed. In the last three-four years he has gathered those boundaries, he has drawn fresh circles to confine his strokes.

He rises less often on his toes now. He has addressed his tendency to commit himself early, he keeps the ball grassed through the covers.

He has adapted to the age. Dwell on the positives, eradicate weaknesses, is the motto of the times.

For lesser mortals, it’s wise counsel. For genius, it’s a descent to mere professionalism.

There are those who treat the batting crease as their castles. Tendulkar once gave us more. He showed his capacity to weather inclement elements, venomous bowling and hopeless prospects. His game was beyond those checks.

Now he checks himself. His brilliance, goes the thinking, must be in attendance to the requirements of Team India. Just as those words are written comes uncanny confirmation. Amidst lengthening shadows and departing crowds, the fall of India’s fifth wicket announces the declaration.

India are 675 for five, Tendulkar unbeaten on 194. It’s Team India’s professionalism, shrug the experts.

They don’t get it. Sport comes alive with an eclectic mix of individual radiance and cold strategy. Subordinate one to the other, and cricket loses its resonance as a dramatic spectacle. But then, what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?