Willowed tradition

Ninteen years ago word spread among cricket enthusiasts of a spectacular feat in the making. Two teenagers in Bombay were then batting in a school game, and their partnership had crossed the 600-run mark. They were headed for a world record, but their eye was on 8212; or rather, cheekily averted from 8212; their coach. 8216;Achrekar Sir8217; had bid Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli to declare, but they wanted to bat. And bat. That 664-run partnership worked them into cricketing lore. In later years they confirmed their skills on the international stage, and thereby enhanced the allure of that record. They made sure that we remember that records are made of numbers alone, freak occurrences to be hailed just for excess.

It is that legacy that two Hyderabad boys attached themselves to on Wednesday. In an inter-school under-13 game, Mohammad Shaibaz Tumbi and B. Manoj Kumar worked up an unbeaten 721-run partnership in just 40 overs. Have Sachin8217;s successors been found? That question is diversionary and irrelevant. Think instead of cricket8217;s capacity to yield such magical moments. Sometimes the game seems so predestined to be big-run, big-money chases that it needs periodic infusions of gigantic feats to blow away clouds of cynicism.

Remember how in 2004 Brian Lara asserted the power of the individual with his 400-run Test innings after West Indies had been thrashed repeatedly. Remember how South Africa rose to the occasion this year by successfully chasing Australia8217;s ODI challenge of 434. Remember too, in case records are seen to be a batsman8217;s preserve, how Anil Kumble averted jingoism in India8217;s win at Ferozshah Kotla in 1999 by taking all ten of Pakistan8217;s second innings wickets. And Tumbi and Kumar, they have shown that cricket8217;s sweetest moments can also be found far away from big stadia, highly bid international games. They have, unannounced and possibly unintentioned, risen to the magnificence of a record held very dear by Indian fans. It8217;s a wonderful moment for cricket when it finds for us ever-newer heroes.