A polite response to my critics who were upset with my satire on God of cricket (since removed). Why I dont accept Sachin as God beyond scrutiny. When a great man of Sachins enviable stature creates unnecessary controversy over unverifiable conversation only to sell his book IT AMUSES. If the coach was indeed damaging the team and also Indian cricket, then it was Sachins bounden duty to speak against him there and then, like Saurav Ganguli did. When a player of Sachins stature with guaranteed permanent berth in Indian team maintains strange silence for 7 long years and re-discovers his lost voice only at the time of releasing his book, it doesnt show his love for cricket or truth; nor it shows his courage or conviction. It only shows timidity and love for money. That HURTS. When a filthy rich man having hundreds of crores of rupees and a dozen cars begs before government for waiver of import duty (your and my money) on yet another foreign car gifted free to him, IT HURTS. When Bharat Ratna appears in commercial ads (only to earn money) IT HURTS. When a cricketing legend, additionally honoured with seat in Rajya Sabha doesnt attend his national duty even for a day and instead prefers to spend time in inaugurating shops (with or without appearance fee) IT HURTS. When a well settled batsman of his extraordinary talent & experience takes 40 odd balls to score last 17 runs for achieving his personal milestone of 100th century while on the other end much less gifted batsmen score 66 runs of same number of balls for winning; and because of his slow batting India loses the match to a much inferior team like Bangladesh IT HURTS When personal ambition becomes more important than victory of India then IT HURTS. And when, in post match press briefing he admits I feel a big monkey off my shoulders countering his own statement in same press meet I was not thinking of this milestone then such double talk from God of cricket rubs salt on wounds. IT HURTS MORE. When a player opts out of less glamorous tours at will citing unconvincing personal reasons, then his claim I love playing for India goes for a six. When the greatest batsman is already past 37, is out of form, is consistently failing to score big, and is described by experts, public and media as a spent force with not so good reflexes anymore and as burden on the team..and yet that player holds on to his place with the help of his clout in BCCI then it shows greed not greatness. Just to make it clear, Sachin scored at an average of 30 in his last 38 innings against his earlier average of 56 plus. Don Bradman scored 3 triple centuries, Sachin scored none. Don Bradman scored 12 double hundreds in 80 innings while Sachin scored 6 in 327 innings. Don Bradman took 80 innings to score his 29 centuries as against 159 innings taken by Sachin for his 29 centuries. Don Bradman achieved average of 99.96 while Sachins average is 53.79 Not just Don Bradman, there are 12 batsmen with higher batting average than Sachins batting average. And all those batsmen scored runs in era when helmets and other protective gears were absent and pitches had uneven bounce. Yet, Sachin is no doubt a very good batsman. But by no stretch of imagination he can be rated as the greatest batsman and certainly not as God of cricket. Like any ordinary person he too has his own quota of good and bad qualities. Being a public figure who earned money with contribution from cricket lovers like you and me, he is not beyond public scrutiny. So whenever he says anything which doesnt sound true vis-a-vis his actions and when his actions do not go well his stature of God, then obviously he is subjecting himself to comments. I am not saying he played only for money nor I am saying that earning money is a sin or crime. I am just saying he didnt play only for love for country or even cricket. PS : Plz avoid passing personal comments.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 11:58:58 +0000
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