Dear Sachin, Open letter to the Master Blaster

10/10/2013
                                              San Francisco  
Dear Sachin,

While the Entire Social media and News Channels have flooded with good-bye Sachin messages, I take this opportunity to write a letter purely from cricket fan’s perspective. Today as you announce your retirement, only one phrase comes to my mind, End of an Era, an era of bat dominating the ball. An era where you pulled the crowd to stadia glued our eyes to the television and locked our ears to the radios. An era where the television advertisement rates where dependent on your batting, once you were out, people switched the channel and hence the eyeball count reduced.

I probably started my cricket-viewing career little before you made your debut, 24 years ago. Back then I wasn’t a test cricket devotee, but I was more of a navy blue jersey cricket fan, the 91-92 world cup jersey that is. I have watched the last over if the titan’s cup a million times. I still remember aping your medium pace bowling action in my early days; I preferred Boost to bournvita and I wanted to have a visa power as soon I could afford one. My first cricket bat had a white tape taped at the bottom even though it wasn’t broken, just because you had one.
One of the riddles of my life has been, your dismissals to debutants, call it beginners luck or coincidence; I felt very bad when I witnessed it. One of the important things I like about you was letting the bat do the talking. Be it against the press or against the fiery bowlers, be it Caddick, or Warne or some one even as lame as Hogg and yes Henry Olonga. You always had the last word without saying anything. For someone who is popular, you had a clean slate, didn’t play a false stroke off the field. Though I didn’t like the way you played when you approached a century, but I always enjoyed the post century blastathon or what ever they called it. It must be a good feeling score a century 100 of them, how would I know, haven’t scored one yet.

Someone had speculated that your 100th hundred would take the same amount of time the 1st one took, kind of circular queue one could say. Some sportsmen say, its good to retire when your running rather than limping, you said it’s selfish to retire on a high. I really thought it was thought provoking. I am happy that you have decided to hang your boots, as some would say ‘better late than never’. When Dravid and Laxman had retired in succession, as a fan I thought that it was nice of you to continue to play well and stick around and groom the youngsters. But the real problem was that we as Indian fans aren’t used to seeing a limping Tendulkar, even though your limp was faster than a sprint of the rest. Just like how our mind doesn’t register a middle order Sehwag, we just can’t associate a struggling Tendulkar.

In the last 13 innings you averaged 25 with two fifties, all at home; I thought you should have got the message somewhere half way through. Some say you wanted to play 200 tests, some say you wanted to play in South Africa, all I say you dragged it. Some say you deserved to call the shot, but you even claim that game is greater than individual. It’s ok to have an after-taste of a delicious meal, but burping the same is a bit of drag, according to me.

5 years ago India didn’t have quality players who could play well abroad, and hence lay the fear of travelling without a stalwart. But the current breeds of players are playing the best cricket I have seen in ages. Dhawan, Pujara and Kolhi have got it covered.

South Africa series was an idea platform for you to go down on a high, against the Lions in their Den, and coincidently it would have been a first oversea test series post Dravid-VVS. Our youngsters would have had a sailor guiding them through the rough ocean. Now with WI series interjecting, I guess it turned out to be a fairy tale ending to your retirement. Mumbai it is, CCI or Wankhede would be decided after a toss. And since you retire after the first, it gives good chance to test the new comer in the latter part of the series.   
Over the past year or so, Test cricket has lost stalwarts; VVS, Dravid, Ponting and Hussey of all these yours ‘was the talk of the town’. Ponting and Hussey retirement left a void; and each time Aussie loses a test the duo as missed. I am sure India will breeze through the home-series against West Indies post your 200th test; my only fear is the South African series. May be I am either too pessimistic or realistic, only time would tell. I can only hope that we fan wouldn’t be in a situation where we poll ‘bring back Sachin’.

One thing is assured that next time the 2nd wicket falls; the crowd would be more worried that being excited. You made No.4 your own.

Your Straight Past the bowler fan,
Manish Madhusoodan