The Little Master

I am currently residing in Australia (I'm English). Now if I were back home in England I would be getting out of bed at 04:00, turning on my TV and would be settling down for the day to watch and pray that the 'Little Master' would keep batting and batting... and batting. This is not just because of the fact that I enjoy seeing the Aussies flounder (Oh I really do!), no, it is because I am possessed by the phenomenon that is Sachin Tendulkar. Every time he walks out to bat I pray that he will score yet another century and when he fails I become quite agitated (more so when he falls in the 90's, as he did at Mohali). Alas I am not able to watch the Great Man bat as in my current home I am not blessed with Sky+ and the wealth of Sport that it provides. Instead I listen to Test Match Sofa, the alternative approach to cricket commentary. This has softened the blow of not being able to watch the master at work.

As I was pouring over Tendulkar's stats yesterday, the thing that struck me most about him was his remarkable consistency. He has, over the course of his career averaged over 50 almost every single year that he has been playing. He has passed 1000 runs in a year a record 6 times. No other batsman has consistently managed these feats.

Tendulkar currently seems able to defy the ravages of time, as I speak he is going through one of, if not his most profilic period ever. So far this year he is averaging 87.25 and has scored 1047 runs and counting with 5 centuries. If he continues in this vein of form there is every possibility that he could surpass Mohammed Yousuf's records for most runs and most hundreds in a calender year. His first triple hundred would do his cause no harm.

I do not think many people would have been able to predict this renaissance in 2006 when Tendulkar averaged 24 from 8 Tests with no hundreds and one fifty. It was said that his powers were on the wane, how wrong they all were! In my opinion his return to form came because of both his immense love for cricket and his powers of concentration. He sensed that he could not come out and dominate attacks from ball one anymore so set about limiting his shots early on and becoming more expansive as he progressed. Clearly whatever his method was, it has worked!

His return to form has not only been limited to the Test arena. Unless you have been living in a cave for the past year you will know of Tendulkar's incredible feat of scoring 200* in a one-day international. Not bad for a 37 year old! Having only being able to watch the highlights of that magnificent innings I can not fully describe its magnificence. However some of his shots, such as his back foot punches through the covers were a joy to watch. Not only were his shots magnificent but so was his stamina and concentration to carry on batting at that frentic pace for so long and at his age is a testament to the amount of work he does of the pitch.

Having not seen nearly as much of Tendulkar as I would have liked, at least I am safe in the knowledge that he will be going for a while yet. The man is a true Legend of the game... a 'Little Master'.