Last Sunday, Bollywood luminaries and team-mates, his childhood coach, Ramakant Achrekar, and those he grew up admiring gathered at the south Mumbai residence of Mukesh and Nita Ambani, owners of the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise, to celebrate two decades of Sachin Tendulkar in Test cricket. There was even Asha Bhosle – of Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha fame – to sing that classic from Umrao Jaan, Aankhon ki Masti (The Magic of these eyes).
Tendulkar was a John McEnroe-admiring curly-haired bully of eight when the movie was released in 1981. But as much as he would have enjoyed the evening, it wouldn’t have been a patch on what had happened earlier in the day, as victory by an innings and 24 runs over Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium took India to the top of the Test rankings for the first time.
To understand what it meant to Tendulkar, you perhaps need to go back a decade, to a Test tour of Australia when he was captain.
You can read the full article here.
The last 18 months have definitely pulled the the dream back together. Awesome at home and abroad. There is no doubt that India were the team of the decade in test cricket. Till the very end none of us will ever forget what happened at Eden Gardens, for some reason the gods decided to stop trodding on the poor Indian fan from that day on. For some reason the Indian fan who traditionally lacked faith actually began to expect greatness day in day out. For some reason the mentally weak Indian cricketer actually began to believe. It changed the tactics of test cricket for almost 5 years. Follow on what follow on…
Its been one hell of a roller coaster and what fun it was as a fan. What a decade, the summit feels awesome; long may it last.
What the world needs now is India vs Saffer 5 TESTS in saffer, to well and truly see who’s the best. Perhaps the over-rated dale steyn et al.. will learn a thing or two when they have to bowl to a real batting line up.
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Hi Dileep. Good write up.
In my opinion, the immense talent and ability present in the batting line up has been the prime reason for many memorable triumphs in the past decade. From a team which refused to win tests abroad, we have transformed into one which can challenge any team any day. Now is the time to stabilise and consolidate our position at the top. But do we really have the quality in batting to ensure that? Once the likes of Sachin, Dravid retire, do we have the necessary personnel to go one better? I really cannot see any batsmen surviving a hostile day at the WACA in the future. Suresh Raina, Kohli, Rohit Sharma are all suited to limited overs cricket. But it might turn out to be a different situation once they mature into composed players.
In both Wanderers and Perth, the stand-out performances were from bowlers but without those partnerships between Sachin & Dravid on the first days, India would have struggled to stitch a defendable score. And in WACA Asad Rauf stopped Sachin when he was just about to replicate 92 heroics ! And it also says about the team that they could win with a 71 when 15 years back even a century wasn’t sufficient ! And this is really where the worry comes when you think of Indian batting. Forget the big centuries but can Rainas and Sharmas make those 50s and 60s on WACA , Wanderers etc. ? At present, they aren’t even planning to face 50 deliveries !