SRT - happily ever after?
Tendulkar must look to past to garner hope for future
From Dileep Premachandran in Bombay
WHEN he nudged a ball from Chaminda Vaas towards square leg and set off for the single, Sachin Tendulkar allowed himself a lingering look at the heavens. Afterwards, basking in the glow of a record-breaking 35th century, he spoke of how it had been for his father, Ramesh, a Marathi poet and writer who passed away during the 1999 World Cup.
That sunlit December afternoon in Delhi, when he put Sunil Gavaskar, another Bombay maestro, in the shade, should have got the monkey off his back, but instead Tendulkar has had to grapple other demons as he goes through one of the worst slumps of a Test career that started in 1989. As he journeys to London for arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, he can reflect on 11 futile visits to the crease since that hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan and friends. In that time, he has scored only 204 runs, not passing 40 once.
With Virender Sehwag also in poor form, India’s batting has had to ride piggy-back on Rahul Dravid, whose mastery of the defensive arts still could not prevent a final-day capitulation in Bombay.
Tendulkar must look to past to garner hope for future
From Dileep Premachandran in Bombay
WHEN he nudged a ball from Chaminda Vaas towards square leg and set off for the single, Sachin Tendulkar allowed himself a lingering look at the heavens. Afterwards, basking in the glow of a record-breaking 35th century, he spoke of how it had been for his father, Ramesh, a Marathi poet and writer who passed away during the 1999 World Cup.
That sunlit December afternoon in Delhi, when he put Sunil Gavaskar, another Bombay maestro, in the shade, should have got the monkey off his back, but instead Tendulkar has had to grapple other demons as he goes through one of the worst slumps of a Test career that started in 1989. As he journeys to London for arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, he can reflect on 11 futile visits to the crease since that hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan and friends. In that time, he has scored only 204 runs, not passing 40 once.
With Virender Sehwag also in poor form, India’s batting has had to ride piggy-back on Rahul Dravid, whose mastery of the defensive arts still could not prevent a final-day capitulation in Bombay.
Tendulkar must look to past to garner hope for future
From Dileep Premachandran in Bombay
WHEN he nudged a ball from Chaminda Vaas towards square leg and set off for the single, Sachin Tendulkar allowed himself a lingering look at the heavens. Afterwards, basking in the glow of a record-breaking 35th century, he spoke of how it had been for his father, Ramesh, a Marathi poet and writer who passed away during the 1999 World Cup.
That sunlit December afternoon in Delhi, when he put Sunil Gavaskar, another Bombay maestro, in the shade, should have got the monkey off his back, but instead Tendulkar has had to grapple other demons as he goes through one of the worst slumps of a Test career that started in 1989. As he journeys to London for arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, he can reflect on 11 futile visits to the crease since that hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan and friends. In that time, he has scored only 204 runs, not passing 40 once.
With Virender Sehwag also in poor form, India’s batting has had to ride piggy-back on Rahul Dravid, whose mastery of the defensive arts still could not prevent a final-day capitulation in Bombay.
Tendulkar has been a shadow of the player who went into the series with an average of 76.5 against England, but if he needs any inspiration for a Lazarus act, Tendulkar need only look back at his own career. In a seven-Test period starting in December 2002 and ending with the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in 2003, he eked out only 253 runs at 19.46, with only two fifties. And as the obituary writers geared themselves up, he arrived at the SCG to play an extraordinary innings, scoring 241.
Unless he can script a similar reversal of fortune upon returning from injury — he will be out of action for at least three months — it is hard to escape the feeling that Indian cricket’s most celebrated chapter may not have a happily ever after
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,426-2100954,00.html
Tendulkar must look to past to garner hope for future
From Dileep Premachandran in Bombay
WHEN he nudged a ball from Chaminda Vaas towards square leg and set off for the single, Sachin Tendulkar allowed himself a lingering look at the heavens. Afterwards, basking in the glow of a record-breaking 35th century, he spoke of how it had been for his father, Ramesh, a Marathi poet and writer who passed away during the 1999 World Cup.
That sunlit December afternoon in Delhi, when he put Sunil Gavaskar, another Bombay maestro, in the shade, should have got the monkey off his back, but instead Tendulkar has had to grapple other demons as he goes through one of the worst slumps of a Test career that started in 1989. As he journeys to London for arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, he can reflect on 11 futile visits to the crease since that hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan and friends. In that time, he has scored only 204 runs, not passing 40 once.
With Virender Sehwag also in poor form, India’s batting has had to ride piggy-back on Rahul Dravid, whose mastery of the defensive arts still could not prevent a final-day capitulation in Bombay.
Tendulkar must look to past to garner hope for future
From Dileep Premachandran in Bombay
WHEN he nudged a ball from Chaminda Vaas towards square leg and set off for the single, Sachin Tendulkar allowed himself a lingering look at the heavens. Afterwards, basking in the glow of a record-breaking 35th century, he spoke of how it had been for his father, Ramesh, a Marathi poet and writer who passed away during the 1999 World Cup.
That sunlit December afternoon in Delhi, when he put Sunil Gavaskar, another Bombay maestro, in the shade, should have got the monkey off his back, but instead Tendulkar has had to grapple other demons as he goes through one of the worst slumps of a Test career that started in 1989. As he journeys to London for arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, he can reflect on 11 futile visits to the crease since that hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan and friends. In that time, he has scored only 204 runs, not passing 40 once.
With Virender Sehwag also in poor form, India’s batting has had to ride piggy-back on Rahul Dravid, whose mastery of the defensive arts still could not prevent a final-day capitulation in Bombay.
Tendulkar must look to past to garner hope for future
From Dileep Premachandran in Bombay
WHEN he nudged a ball from Chaminda Vaas towards square leg and set off for the single, Sachin Tendulkar allowed himself a lingering look at the heavens. Afterwards, basking in the glow of a record-breaking 35th century, he spoke of how it had been for his father, Ramesh, a Marathi poet and writer who passed away during the 1999 World Cup.
That sunlit December afternoon in Delhi, when he put Sunil Gavaskar, another Bombay maestro, in the shade, should have got the monkey off his back, but instead Tendulkar has had to grapple other demons as he goes through one of the worst slumps of a Test career that started in 1989. As he journeys to London for arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder, he can reflect on 11 futile visits to the crease since that hundred against Muttiah Muralitharan and friends. In that time, he has scored only 204 runs, not passing 40 once.
With Virender Sehwag also in poor form, India’s batting has had to ride piggy-back on Rahul Dravid, whose mastery of the defensive arts still could not prevent a final-day capitulation in Bombay.
Tendulkar has been a shadow of the player who went into the series with an average of 76.5 against England, but if he needs any inspiration for a Lazarus act, Tendulkar need only look back at his own career. In a seven-Test period starting in December 2002 and ending with the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in 2003, he eked out only 253 runs at 19.46, with only two fifties. And as the obituary writers geared themselves up, he arrived at the SCG to play an extraordinary innings, scoring 241.
Unless he can script a similar reversal of fortune upon returning from injury — he will be out of action for at least three months — it is hard to escape the feeling that Indian cricket’s most celebrated chapter may not have a happily ever after
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,426-2100954,00.html