Smashed Out!

Everyone wrote him off! But it was not the first time that a sportsperson has been written off by the critics. One lean patch and speculations start flowing around about ending career and a flagging end. It happened with Sourav Ganguly. And more recently with the master blaster.

Till he ‘smashed’ his critics with a ton, most of them were talking not only of his loss in form, but also about his inclusion in the team. Most of them were of the opinion that like others, he should be made to prove himself in domestic cricket before being selected for the national side (like Ganguly). Doesn’t matter what he was and what he can and could do. Yes, they do have a point. One need not be in the team because of past exploits.

But they failed to understand one thing. Tendlukar might not have been ‘Tendulkar-The batsman’, but he was ‘Tendulkar-The cricketer’. His willow might not have delivered, but his bowling did on more than a few occasions. And am sure, his experience and advice might definitely have helped the team in more ways than one. What was missing was the aggression and the so to say ‘spunk’ in his batting.

One more accusation was that Tendulkar was playing for himself and not for the team! To me, that is the strangest criticism not only for Tendulkar, but for any person in the cricket team or any tem event. Because, even if a person plays for personal gains, one way or the other it benefits the team. Only in rarest of rare circumstances does a team lose becuase of personal interests of team members. And how can one forget the times when Tendulkar has single-handedly won matches for India! His knock against the Windies in the final match was proof enough of his abilities as a match winner.

With his batting on field and verbal batting off-field (“I don’t care what X, Y, Z says about my batting…” sentence), he has managed to silence his critics for quite some time.