Tendulkar buries Australian jinx

This is the 29th and final tri-series to be played in Australia, and the finals will almost certainly be Sachin Tendulkar's last games on Australian soil. In 38 previous one-day matches, he had never managed a century in Australia, with a 93 against Pakistan at Hobart being the closest that he had come. In recent times, his second-innings record had also come in for scrutiny, with Sanjay Manjrekar calling him the "elephant in the room" that no one dared talk about.

Manjrekar's comments appeared in The Times of India. Tendulkar isn't in the habit of reading newspapers while he's playing, but you can rest assured that some trouble-maker or the other would have brought the story to his attention. Such is the personality cult around Tendulkar in India that there's now bound to be the inevitable slew of "He shut up the jealous man" comments from those that don't have any idea how passionate Manjrekar is about the game.

Well-meaning commentators must say what they must, and it's Tendulkar's prerogative not to listen, but there's no doubt that this was a watershed innings in a career that has seen quite a few. It didn't have the shock-and-awe dominance that illuminated Sharjah in 1998, the Australians again at the receiving end, but it was as good as I've seen him bat since an awesome 95 against Mohammad Asif and friends on a seaming track at Lahore in February 2006.

It will please the Indians immensely that it was no one-man show either. Praveen Kumar, a surprising choice to take the new ball given his lack of pace, and Ishant Sharma set the tone early on, and there was finally a probing spell from Harbhajan Singh, who had spent most of his tour dishing out and receiving abuse. As eye-catching were the 10 overs bowled by Piyush Chawla, who showed tremendous temperament and nous in his first outing of the tournament.

Australia battled back stoutly through Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey, but 240 was always within reach if India managed to weather the early Brett Lee storm. With Tendulkar in determined mood and Robin Uthappa eschewing some of his flamboyance, they did that perfectly, and the 123-run partnership between the two Mumbai boys made sure that a mid-innings blip wouldn't matter.

More than 16 years ago, Tendulkar produced two or three outstanding knocks in a World Series tournament that also included the West Indies. These days, he's the senior statesman of the game and he can't but have been impressed with the composure that Rohit Sharma showed during the key phase of the game. His driving down the ground was of pristine beauty, and he grafted and hustled to take much of the pressure off Tendulkar.

He still hasn't delivered a defining innings yet, but today, in the company of Mumbai cricket's biggest icon, he came mighty close. At 20, the world is his batting crease, and he would have learnt a valuable lesson or two today in the two hours that he watched a master at work.

A few days ago, Harbhajan reckoned that Hayden's 'obnoxious-weed' comments about him were driven by the fear that the Australian crown was slipping. But with three successive World Cup triumphs and a Champions Trophy win in the immediate past, few supporters will be ringing the alarms just yet. What India showed today though is that they remain the only team who can push Australia on a consistent basis, and sometimes come out on top. With the trophy on the line, we can expect a spine-tingling contest at the Gabba on Tuesday.

Comments

[varghese]

you said it Raju

[Ashish Deokar]

I think whatever sanjay manjrekar has said we should treat that as a critisim of a player who is not performing well enough.As can be seen from sachin's record while chasing and in finals from last few years it is clearly evident that these is worrying factor.If he is not scoring runs and we are losing then he should be held responsible for defeats in same way as any other player.

[Raju]

Dileep, India beat the Aussies 3 times in the CB series. Any guesses on who scored the highest individual score in those 3 matches?? We set a completely different standard when it comes to Tendulkar and the scary part is he meets those standards on more occasions than we care to remember. Time has taken its toll on his body but he can still make his critics shut up without uttering a single word in public. He deserves to have been born in a country like australia where even rude, obnoxious people like Symonds and Hayden are held in such great esteem and not in a constantly sniping, bitching, effigy-burning country like ours in India.

[Dileep]

Maybe you need to examine South Africa's record against Australia this decade (especially in Tests). Apart from England on one isolated occasion, only India have been able to match Australia time after time. Every Australian player will tell you as much. Every Aus-SA series has been hyped to the skies, but ended up in a rout.

[Steve]

Where does this nonsense about "only India can push Australia" come from. India were thrashed by South Africa earlier this season. What a one eyed comment!!!

[john d topley]

Congratulations Sachim and congratulations India on two superb victories!It is wonderful to watch the Aussies get their butts kicked.

[cricket magazine]

Sachin has a great record as a batsman but his one failure has been that after setting up good scores he invariably falls which triggers a batting collapse leaving poor Indians fans praying for a victory in the last few balls when he could have comfortably finished it himself. At Sydney he stayed to finish the job and that made all the difference.

[Ram]

I'm an Indian and a proud (sometimes dejected) supporter of the Indian cricket team. What disgusts me and embarrasses me is the blind idiocy of Indian fans. Pride is good but I find most of it extreme, blinding and misplaced. They deify Sachin and a few others, mostly depending on what region they come from (but not always of course). Sachin can never be criticized. His performance or lack thereof is never to be analyzed. No one can have an opinion. It's high time we got rid of this primitive, self-defensive crap. While we do that, we could improve the crap we write on the placards in the stadium, stop "boys" from "raising their hand", etc. or "crores" of people will be forever in a "developing state". You're welcome to flame me.

[kayalvizhi]

It is a good thing you know. sachin proves that he is an excellent player.Due to him the australians teared.It is a really really good knock by sachin.Thanks for sachin.

[Binu]

It would be naive to think that Sanjay made an "objective" comment about Sachin. When he wrote that Sachin faked his injuries, where was the objectivity? Of late, I have seen Sanjay talking about Sachin only when he fails. His association with Chappel- who said Sachin should retire if he is playing for anything else other than passion- and his blind support to the other Chappel who tried to run down every senior cricketer in India cannot be ignored in the context. As Sachin said, we do not have to listen to those people whose credibility is questionable.

[Ann]

Hmm ...

[Mick Dundee]

At last, something Ann and I agree on.
The Australian fielding was woeful by their standards.
Still better than any other team in world cricket though.
Good Luck tonight, India.

[Rama]

Kailash, India have Chawla as a good spinner. There are a couple of good domestic spinners as well in the ranks (Ohja?). Hoepfully they can fill the void left by Kumble in another 5 years.

Players are rarely great the minute they land on the international scene, only very rarely does that happen. I'm not sure if people were saying that Tendulkar was an all-time great when he was 16, but in any case he is an exception. Let the youngsters grow into their positions. Dravid became a great, and Ganguly did in the ODI arena. Maybe the next crop of spinners will develop in the same fashion.

[Ann]

You missed a treat, D Singh - it was a superb knock from ST.

The Australian fielding was superb??? Really??? It was sloppy in all the overs I watched, allowing numerous easy balls to dribble away before being retrieved and thrown to Gilchrist.

[Karan Kapoor]

The Aussies are the worst "Losers" in the world. Not only the team, but their uneducated and biased media and fans. Now Harbhajan cannot scratch an itch without being labelled racist. Atleast with neutral umpires, the world does not have to worry about the Aussie umpires.

[bunty]

yes, india's crop of good fm bowlers is what is making india more competitive overseas; but that doesnt in anyway detract from Sachin's fine century. by the way no1 in oz is yet worried by the racist comments of some of their spectators at bhajji.and CA has ignored it. on the one hand, i'm glad that the issue doesnt exscalate we've had enough of all the nonsense; but on the other hand it was CA and the oz media that was in such furore over a couple of monkey taunts at symmo (who doesnt look African and thus while offensive and unfiendly maynt have been intended as racist or known to those involved at the time as having any racist connotations) and surely the admitted comments as bhajji a visible Sikh, must be similarly censured by CA even in the absence of any complaint but on the basis of the reports (the concerned 'monkey' fans in india face life bans from matches?)

[Kailash Mathur]

With due respect to Tendulkar, who as one of the rare players in the world, plays according to the books, it is the run of fast bowlers which India has been producing lately, that has made India a challenging team in the world. All kudos to those acadamies in India, which are training these fast bowlers.

Unfortunately the production of spin bowlers is on decline in India and India has no worthy repalcement for Kumble so far.

[Sandip]

It would be fun to read what the "passionate" Mr Sanjay Manjrekar has to say now. You really believe Mr Premachandran, that Manjrekar's comments on Sachin Tendulkar were objective ones, compared to his comments on other cricketers like Rahul Dravid?

[Nitin]

I have to agree with Mr D Singh's comments above and I do not agree with Mr. Premchandran's comments about Sanjay Manjrekar vis-a-vis Sachin Tendulkar.

Manjrekar may well be madly passionate about cricket. And sure correspondents have to comment - that's what they are in business for. However, it does not appear to me that his comments on Sachin were borne out of objective analysis.

How is it that he failed to notice Sachin's resurgence ever since Greg Chappell was sent packing (and trust me, he only left because he had no option)? How is it that Sachin's performance against South Africa in Ireland, against England in the Tests and ODI's, against Australia and Pak in the ODI's in India and in the test series down under - all of this - went unnoticed by this passionate follower of the game? But as soon as Sachin failed in 3 consecutive innings - he pounced on him! Didn't waste a minute!

I'm sorry sir - this is hatchet job, pure and simple. Dravid failed many times since the world cup, yet Mr. Manjrekar was blind to that...I don't know what Sachin has done to Mr. Manjrekar during the course of their association - real or imagined - whatever it is, the scars obviously run deep.

[Dan Patel]

To be fair India's fielding resembled that of a team in a village in deepest India.

Australia's fielding was absolutely superb.

But then Hayden and Symonds are still up the Kakadoo without a paddle tonight eh!

Well, there's always a bowl of 'roo soup to cry over eh!!

[Dan Patel]

Little 'weed' and little 'master' box big Hayden and big Symonds right out of the ring.

How sweet is that!!

[bunty]

people are entitled to their views; certainly sachins form in recent seasons had raised eyebrows. however, he answered it in the best manner - with his bat. well played sachin!
re bhajji the oz media is upset by his playacting with yuvi and allege monkey antics and spitting in the direction of hostile fans. interestingly the hostile fans admit to have been asking bhajji, a sikh, to cut his hair and show his knot both unambiguously racist comments to a sikh. tho the oz media predictably claims its covered by 'having a go' (which they insist monkey taunts are not) lets see what CA will do

[Dsingh]

Aha..Finally some cricket after the mind numbing madness off the field. Great effort from the little master. I did not see the innings, but I reckon from his strike rate, he was exceptional today.

On Manjrekar issue, I have to admit that I felt the same way - mutterings of a frustrated and jealous man. Manjerakar in the company of Ian Chappell, has often tended to over complicate the analysis. They have more of personal spin on the analysis than a rational one. Ian Chapell had come out roaring in defence of his beleagured brother after the WC debacle, knowing fully fell Greg would be roasted over his failures.

Likewise Manjerakar, in recent years, has become the strongest adversary for Sachin, more than the opposition bowlers. It is hard not to imagine, his closer association with Ian on their shows on Cricinfo has its effect. If you really look at other retired cricketers from Mumbai, anyone worth a name in cricket field, is engaged in some meaningful support for the India team. He stands out as a sore looser who may have missed out on some big moolah from the profession he left underachieved. If you really look at the timings of his comments of late, he is kicking India team when the team is most down. He wants to pretend as a pained messiah of India cricket. Far from it. He has done nothing of note before or after his retirement that gives him license to kill the "maestro" at every opportunity. I just wish he shut up and not pour his ill-feelings about the "maestro" into black and white and further divide a budding team.