Part of Sachin’s current predicament is his own creation. He made cricket appear an extremely easy game—blame his extraordinary talent for that—and whetted an appetite in the lay cricket fan that has got increasingly insatiable. In olden days, a score of 114 runs from 147 balls would have been acknowledged as a great batting effort. Not any more. He has made people familiar with and accustomed to 100 percent plus strike rate. The likes of Virender Shewag have spoilt them even more. They won’t be satisfied with anything less.
No wonder, he was blamed for India’s defeat against Bangladesh in the just-concluded Asia Cup. ‘Sachin wins, India loses,’ that was the unstated or understated refrain in all news reports after the defeat. It was conveniently forgotten that the final score was a defendable one and the bowlers failed to deliver. And also there were other more aggressive players in the team who could have easily squeezed out another 20 runs from the 150-odd deliveries they faced.
The god of 22-yards. Getty Images
But in the great tradition of the Indian cricket fan, scapegoats have to be found and flogged. Sachin has been easy meat after his slump in form in recent times. So it had to be him again. He has to take it. He cannot expect the cricket follower to get into intelligent dissection of the game. The latter is a crude animal loyal and happy till he gets his dose of adrenaline rush. Sachin has created a thrill lust in the fan which he himself finds difficult to satisfy.
Of late, there has been some analysis which points out that batsmen like Rahul Dravid won’t find favour with the modern-day cricket fan. The latter is programmed to speed and thrill and the Dravid school of batting is too slow, too self-indulgent to cope with that. Seen from a fan’s perspective the argument is true. The game has evolved fast over the last two decades, as has its follower. Neither has tolerance for the old school.
But seen from the team’s perspective, the argument is totally unconvincing. It takes remarkable grit to stand there in the middle and ward off the danger from the fast bowlers to the team. It requires true skills, control over one’s batting and mental strength to that. It applies to Tests as well as One-Dayers. These are the people who shine when the times are difficult — the true heroes all forms of sport celebrate. No one has discussed Dravid’s contribution to the team in winning causes — it is close to 60 percent.
Most of modern day followers love adventurers not gritty characters. Obviously, the finer points of the game as it is played actually and the utility of players like Dravid would be lost on them. But what’s so wrong with Sachin? Feted as God of cricket just a year ago why is he suddenly a figure many love to dislike?
Is it age? In our movies heroines lose their market value after they hit 30. Their skills at acting and belting out hits are no more the matter. People just get fed up; they want fresher faces, stronger titilation and new images to spice up secret fantasies. Skills are of lesser import than the urge for the new. Critics have turned Sachin into the cricket’s version of that 30-plus lead actress of our movies. Most of the criticism these days are about his age, not the ability to play the game.
There are fresher and younger talents around alright—some of them may even be brighter than Sachin—but they don’t necessarily reduce him to an avoidable burden on the team. He is still the pioneer of the brand of cricket the fresh faces in the team play and still the leader of the pack when it comes to Indian batting.
After Dravid, cricket has possibly lost its last link to old-world—which many say is redundant—cricket but the case of Sachin is entirely different. He is quintessentially a modern-day cricketer in tune with the changing pace of the game. He may have failed to feed the thrill-lust of the fans. But given their unlimited hunger for more, rest assured, no one else would be able to do more.
So let him play. And critics, please, don’t teach him how to play cricket. It is embarrassing.
Source: Sachin: Insatiable thrill-lust of fans and the shrinking God
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