On 16th march, 2012, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar made Indians proud by registering his 100th International century at Mirpur in Bangladesh. In celebration of this incredible feat, the frenzied Indian media started anointing the Little Master with all kinds of eulogies, zillions of congratulatory messages poured in from all quarters, the fans became ecstatic in joy, the demand for awarding Sachin with Bharat Ratna got fresh impetus, and one overenthusiastic columnist even compared his feat with Pele’s achievements. Having saluted the Maestro for this monumental accomplishment, I am going to raise a few critical points that may sound cacophonous to those who consider cricket as a religion and Sachin as a God.
1. Strange logic behind this century of centuries: “Century of centuries may be a catchy phrase, but I find it slightly simplistic and irrational. We know simple addition can be performed on quantities having the same unit. But, here we are adding quantities which have different units, namely, test centuries and odi (one day international) centuries. It may not be as bad as adding one mare plus one donkey is equal to one mule. But it is almost like adding 51 meters with 49 centimeter and coming with the erroneous answer of 100 meters. We have to understand that one odi century, by no means, is equivalent to one test century. The difficulty in scoring a ton in a odi match is much lessened by a) strict wide ball rule which restricts swing bowling, b) maximum quota of 10 overs for strike bowlers, c) fielding restrictions in the power play periods, d) restriction of bouncer law, e) designer pitches made to suit the batsmen etcetera. Therefore equaling a odi century with a test century will be highly fallacious. However, with this argument, Sachin’s credit cannot be taken away as he is highest century maker for both versions of the game.
2. Relation between Sachin’s century and India’s win: For the last few years a rumor has been gaining momentum that whenever Sachin makes a century India loses the match. Obviously this is not true. However, it is very important to examine the degree of truth in the rumor if we are to compare him with other greats of the sport. However, I am not going to make a comparison with the legendary footballer Pele, as football and cricket should not be compared: football is played by almost whole world and the level of competition is very high here, whereas cricket is played by only a handful of nations and only 7 or 8 nations can be termed as strong. However, Sachin can always be compared with two of his contemporary greats: Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting. In the odis, the percentages of winning centuries for Sachin (33 wins out of 49), Lara (16 wins out of 19) and Ponting (25 wins out of 30) are 67.35, 84.21 and 83.33 respectively. However, since 2004, Sachin has scored 13 odi hundreds out of which on only 5 occasions India has won. Probably, this poor 38.46% has originated the aforesaid rumor. However, in the overall tally, Sachin’s score of 53 percent surpasses Lara’s 43%, but falls far behind Punter’s 77%. As per my opinion, winning is more important that personal achievements. In this regard, I rate Ponting and Lara (considering the weak side he was playing for) more useful than Sachin.
Source of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_cricket_centuries_by_Brian_Lara;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_cricket_centuries_by_Sachin_Tendulkar
Picture from the Internet
Picture from the Internet
