The joys of watching Sachin Tendulkar miss a century

If you are not invested in Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th century — emotionally, financially or otherwise — there’s quite a lot of fun to be had from the drama that surrounds it. There’s the hype that precedes every game, and the sycophancy that follows each failed attempt, as our commentators fall all over themselves in trying to explain away another failed attempt. ‘It’s just a matter of time,’ they proclaim, which is obviously something nobody can dispute; given unlimited time and opportunity, he will get it. ‘It doesn’t bother him’ is another specious claim, because anybody can see how badly Sachin wants it.

The 80 in Sydney, 73 in Melbourne, and 94 in Mumbai in his last three Tests have followed a pattern that shows how the milestone has been the undoing of the most experienced batsman in Test history. He looked fit and in good nick as he went about each innings briskly with drives, cuts and flicks to square leg at every opportunity. In Mumbai, he slowed down to a crawl as he approached the century on a batting track that seemed to have been tailor-made for him, but a tentative poke at a ball rising outside off-stump put paid to it. In Melbourne and Sydney too he went into a shell, and paid the price by getting out to timid defensive prods.

The pre-match build-up is that of a game within a game. Even Sachin contributed to it by talking of how Sydney was his favourite hunting ground outside India. It had a ring of whistling in the dark, however, because this is now the longest stretch without a century for him — 18 innings — and he seems rattled by it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have got out to a 70-over-old ball to part-time spinner Michael Clarke who had himself hit an unbeaten triple century on a placid track that had lost all life after the first day. That a man who has achieved so much should be undone by his need to get to a milestone in the closing stages of his 22-year-old career is ironic in a way, and quite farcical.

This is a team game, and on the Australian side we saw their captain Clarke declare the innings when he was five runs short of the second-highest Test score by an Aussie — 334 by both Don Bradman and Mark Taylor. He could even have gone on to break Brian Lara’s record of 400. But it was the right time to declare, to give his team enough time to win the match in case the Indians managed to string together a couple of big partnerships, and he did not hesitate to make the call. The Indian obsession with idols and milestones is a stark contrast and one reason why the team is underperforming.

Milestones should come only in the natural course of the game, and the team’s interests should always take precedence. Therefore, the debate over Sachin should not be about his century at all. What we should be discussing is whether India’s aging cricketers still have it in them, mentally and physically, to make big scores in challenging conditions to set up victories for their team — just like Ponting and Clarke did in Sydney. The 100th ton should be a sideshow.

That’s not going to happen, of course. So as we head into the Perth Test after a gap, the hype and hoopla will be set rolling all over again. For the few who are detached about the milestone and more interested in the human drama that unfolds in cricket, it can be as much fun as black humour. Cricket is a fascinating game because often it is the human frailties, both mental and emotional, that decide the outcome as much as the physical power and skills involved in batting or bowling.