Tendulkar had better get his act together quickly. Sunday would have been a good day to get his 100th international century.
Sachin Tendulkar had better get his act together quickly. Sunday would have been a good day to get his 100th international century. He didn’t, and I received a bunch of messages with a variation of this message: “We need Tendulkar to do his bit now. Maybe we should let him know that we are up against a deadline!” This, from an ad agency which has based a whole campaign around the magic century.
“If Sachin doesn’t get a century, the World Cup would be meaningless,” wrote another whose speciality clearly is seeking meaning where none exists.
A country that has been holding its breath for some weeks now is waiting to exhale. Should Tendulkar not make a century soon, his countrymen are likely to express their disappointment in the time-worn fashion: by burning buses, stoning Rahul Dravid’s house, raising slogans and demanding that India play one more series against Sri Lanka so the record can be got out of the way.
In the interests of peace and harmony, therefore, Australia should allow Sachin to get a century.
Ah! Where is Lalit Modi when you need him? He would have changed the rules of the tournament, even the Laws of the game to ensure this.
Advertisers, journalists, ad companies, fans, who have bought tickets for all the India games in the hope of being present when history is made and thereby being handed a readymade story for their grandchildren, columnists, Tendulkar-watchers around the world, the Indian team, push-cart businessmen around stadiums hoping to make a killing on the big day, souvenir-hunters, souvenir-manufacturers, bookies offering odds on where the event will take place, politicians with their congratulatory messages at the ready, firecracker manufacturers, sports editors with special issues planned, young couples determined to get married on the big day, bureaucrats preparing to pull off a scam on the day when the whole nation’s attention is diverted elsewhere, everybody has been holding his breath.
Everybody, but Sachin Tendulkar, that is. He seems unaffected by all the clamour and looks the calmest of the lot with the possible exception of the man living in a remote cave at the border of Germany and Poland who is in hiding because no one told him Hitler’s war is over.
What if Tendulkar, having broken every record there is (well, almost), has decided to play a trick on all of the above? Perhaps he fancies the number 99. After all, that is Don Bradman’s Test average. What if he decides to pull down the shutters and remain on 99 international centuries?
He already has 31 more centuries than anyone else, and these things can become tiresome. After all there are so many other gaps to fill as statisticians will tell you. The most 50s on a Wednesday without a national holiday, the most runs by a batsman with a runner, the most number of singles to square leg to get off the mark...
There is more to life than a century of centuries.
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