Cricket India

What is happening to Sachin Tendulkar? This is the question that makes the round more than anything else, even the emotionally charged discussion on Sourav Ganguly's form. Has Tendulkar also lost his form or at least a significant part of it? Many believe he is slowly fading away. A case of a typical burnout owing to over-exposure to rigors of cricket at the highest level, both physically and mentally. There may be elements of several such factors in Tendulkar's present rating as a batsman. But I personally feel he is evolving. Don't take it as a defense of Tendulkar. But he genuinely is restructuring his cricket to stay on at this level or is doing this to be of continued use to his team. And I don't think such a change has taken place because he has lost his sharpness a great deal. He certainly has lost something and that I firmly believe is his once-overflowing self-confidence. Tendulkar is not confident that he can approach his batting the way he used to, years back. Confidence bordering on arrogance was his trademark approach. Now, that arrogance is gone, gone for ever. He is now more like a very good batsman who pays a lot of attention to his staying at the wicket, studying the pitch, studying the opposing bowlers. But of late Tendulkar even goes a step further. He refuses to shift to another gear even after the probing session is over. He is a grafter now. What a fall from the emperor to a magistrate! He has the game even now to earn a place in the Indian team comfortably. He definitely will perform creditably too, quite creditably for a frontline batsman but perhaps not for a Tendulkar. That is the tragedy that has befallen one of the greatest souls who have ever graced the game. Tendulkar does not seem to be in the league with the great tragic characters of the yore. He is not compelled by such a self-destructing impulse to carry on in the same vein and get destroyed by his own failure to read the writing on the wall. He is too shrewd for that. He knows he is not the Tendulkar of the golden days. He also knows that he has to be of continued use to the team so that some mediocre batwielder does not push him out of the team after a series of arrogant but brief stints at the crease. Constant exposure aided by modern technology has also played a part in forcing such a change in Tendulkar's approach to his batting. Every well equipped national cricket apparatus has dissected him threadbare. Every season makes him more vulnerable in that sense. Only a superhuman effort coupled by oodles of talent can keep the show going without much damage. I am sure Tendulkar has realized that he couldn't do that that the same magic can't be kept alive without risking his career. So the great Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar has decided to shed his larger-than-life image and to climb down to less rarified heights where he is not threatened by lesser mortals. He will get his thirty sixth century. He will at least get a couple of thousand runs more in test cricket. And occasionally he may even get into the zone where we will witness the genius of the old master. As Viv Richards said, Tendulkar is a legend even if he does not score a run more. But he has the hunger for runs even now and he is supremely fit also. Enough to keep him going for a few more seasons. Well, those seasons and extra runs will not hide the fact that it is the shadow of a legend that is at work.