Tendulkar, done in by accident, tells his fans life’s like that

Drowned amidst the confusion was Tendulkar’s 5000th Test run which came after the second run of that dramatic sequence. Then, as he turned for the third, Nadeem Khan — substituting for Saeed Anwar — picked up ball yards from the fence andfired in a looping throw. Seconds before the ball landed on the stumps, Tendulkar — with his eyes on the ball — swerved away from the pitch and thudded into Akhter backing up square of the wicket.

In that split second, Tendulkar’s bat touched the ground just short of the crease but the impact of the collision lifted it back into the air. Unfortunately, Akhter too had his eyes on the throw and the accident’ meant India had lost a crucial wicket to be 145 for three with 134 runs still to go for a win.

It was 1.24 pm, and Tendulkar’s partner Rahul Dravid had a stunned look on his face. Then it was time for Calcutta’s cricket fans to take over. Obviously, they had decided that Akhter had blocked Tendulkar intentionally while TV replays showed otherwise. But the damage was done and the rain of bottles started. The players remained in their dressing rooms locked in a tense huddle while the umpires went up to the match referee’s room for a frame-by-frame rewind of the incident.

Meanwhile, out on the ground,the situation worsened as a bunch of local policemen went on a comical jog round the ground to jeers and catcalls. Soon, a series of goodwill’ messages were flashed on the giant screen by the organisers. One of them read: “Calcutta loves cricket. Please maintain Eden’s Tradition.”

Twenty nervous minutes had ticked over by now and suddenly the cameras zoomed in on a hastily scribbled placard in the stands which read: “We’re sorry.” Probably, someone out there had realised that things were going horribly wrong. Soon, that sense of guilt seemed to spread across the stadium as the torrent of bottles subsided only to be followed by the climax.

In an effort to calm his fans, Tendulkar suddenly appeared on the turf escorted by ICC president and Cricket Association of Bengal chief, Jagmohan Dalmiya. Tendulkar looked tense and quite reluctant to go on as a bunch of commandos and a whole horde of photographers tagged along for the trip. But as Commissioner of Police, Dinesh Vajpayi said later, “the fansseemed to have completely calmed down after that gesture.” Dalmiya refused to comment on whether Tendulkar was forced out for the parade, but it did seem an unfair burden on the dazed young man who had just got out.

Match referee Cammie Smith, meanwhile, had decided that Akhter was not at fault after all. And rightly so as the ICC law code says that the obstruction clause comes into play only if the batsman had entered the crease and then left it to avoid injury.

Early tea was declared to stamp out the last embers of fan fury and the show, finally, got off again with skipper Azharuddin taking over from Tendulkar. But by then, Dravid had lost his concentration and got out to an uncharacteristic shot an over later. Azharuddin and Nayan Mongia followed to leave India 65 runs short of victory with four wickets and a day to spare.