SACHIN TENDULKAR, SUPERSTAR

perhaps the indian cricket team will do better in the second test match. (as it happens, they will simply because they couldn't do worse than the first test.) whatever the performance, one thing is clear. the team is missing sachin tendulkar. and why shouldn't he be missed? after all, he is widely regarded as wbb (world's best batsman). he is also the only current player to find a place in don bradman's controversial dream team.of course, there are some who do not agree with the general assessment that tendulkar is wbb. both raj singh dungarpur and sunil gavaskar have said at various times that steve waugh is the better batsman because he delivers in a crisis. barry richards, the great south african batsman and current commentator has a similar point of view. he says that tendulkar is a supernova at home, but a mere star abroad, as faster, bouncier pitches often bring about his downfall. glenn mcgrath for one would agree: in india you saw him walking back to his run-up shaking his head after being whacked once again by tendulkar; in australia, he did get sachin out more than once. my own contention — and please forgive me for putting myself in such august company — is that sachin tendulkar is not, repeat not, the wbb. he is the wbc. but more of that in a moment. gavaskar and dungarpur's assertion can be countered on two points. yes, steve waugh is the man for a crisis, but when he is playing for a team as strong as the australians, those crises don't come too often. with india every innings is a crisis. if tendulkar fails, india fails. even now, the only thing that can bring 50,000 raucous spectators from deafening noise to deafening silence, is a tendulkar dismissal. our country is cricket-crazy and sachin tendulkar is god, whereas in sports-mad australia, they have other games to keep cricket in perspective. point 1 and point 2 combine to put far less a psychological burden on waugh than on tendulkar. when you think of it, it's a wonder that sachin's shoulders don't stoop from carrying the hopes of one billion people each time he goes out to bat. as for richard's criticism, there are nothing like good old statistics to check on who is right and who is not. and statistics show that barry richards isn't quite right. look at them. tendulkar's test match average (until recently), in india is 62.97 at home and 53.01 abroad, with a career average of 57.29. you might say that there is a large disparity between the home and away figures, but that's largely due to two recent double centuries in india. compare these to brian lara's. his figures are 59.33 home and 40.88 away, which is a significant difference. inzaman-ul-haq's figures are 43.46 and 44.84, jacques kallis' 40.67 and 45.38. only steve waugh's away figures are better (55.97) as against home (47.12). what that might mean is that other australian batsmen have failed more often overseas, calling on waugh's famous rear-guard spirit. but the significant thing is that tendulkar's overall figures are better than everyone else's and his overseas figures better than everyone but waugh's. even more significantly, sachin has scored 13 centuries abroad in 45 tests, which is a hundred in every 3.5 tests, which is far, far better than waugh and everyone else. then there is the clinching argument: sachin tendulkar's range of strokes and his ability to improvise and dominate bowling is unparalleled in contemporary cricket. in the end, let's come back to this humble writer's not-so-humble opinion, that tendulkar is not the wbb but the wbc. as you have probably guessed, that stands for world's best cricketer. only a few lines are needed to prove that: in the hero cup semi-final against south africa, with the proteas needing just four runs from the 50th over to win, tendulkar, a non-regular bowler then, and who hadn't bowled a single ball in that innings volunteered, no demanded, that he be given the ball. and he won the match for india! that one incident sums up his attitude, which is to take on even more responsibilities than he already has in the interests of the team. as the superstar of the team, he is the opposite of a prima donna: he is the ideal team man. even more than that, sachin tendulkar's behaviour on and off the field has been exemplary, with not a single incident which has been negative. the australians, particularly, and amongst the australians, steve waugh and mcgrath even more particularly, have needled him, yet his response has been to let his bat do the talking. on the last australian tour he was given out three times by local umpires to the most palpably wrong decisions. tendulkar, by gesture or expression, showed no dissent.not even surprise. you couldn't get a better ambassador for the game. when that ambassador happens to be the world's best batsman, you get the world's best cricketer.