Cricket

Amidst the breast beating surrounding the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, I sat through a sad piece of interviewing by one Boria Majumdar, a sports journalist. The gent was interviewing a galaxy of stars; Brian Lara, Rameez Raja, Gautam Gambhir and the bad boy of Pakistan cricket S.Akhtar. Well the drift was as follows: Sachin was the greatest to have graced the cricket field and stands above the rest. While I love Sachin, Boria's stand is a bit rich. How can one compare, Sir Gary Sobers, Viv Richards, Brian Lara,Sachin Tendulkar and the great Don Bradman. All of them batted their way to history in different era's and demolished the best of their time. Bradman of course stands tall with his average of 99.94. An awesome feat which has since not been matched.

Boria's stand is that Sachin is greater than the Don, simply because the latter did not play in India. Well, he did play against India in Australia and literally nailed every Indian bolwler. Importantly the Don missed five years of cricket due to one Adolf Hitler jack booting through Europe and WW2, while in his prime. Sachin tendulkar is our pride and a great cricketer but to place him on a pedestal is robbing cricket of that place. The game deserves better.Sachin was a child prodigy who fulfilled that promise.

Rahul Dravid's count of 8 series-defining performances in Test cricket is not just the highest for any Indian Test cricketer, it is the highest by any batsman in all of Test cricket history. This is what makes Rahul Dravid such a giant even in international cricket. How does he compare with Sachin? The game of cricket is a great one and can we leave it at that please?