CRICKET HAS always been hard to define. One of the most difficult challenges in the world is the task of trying to explain the game to an American. I can write with some authority on this because I know at least two Americans and both start clutching their temples and writhing in agony whenever the subject is broached. It's as if they can't stand the sound of my own voice.
Truly, it's one of life's great mysteries. How does one explain cricket in 100 words or less; in a 10 second video clip or with the help of a still photograph? If the world was to be taken over by Americans or another alien species, how would we go about showing them the essence of the game? Robin Williams never understood it, after all. Reckoned it was like watching baseball on Valium. Groucho Marx once watched a match for two days before realising it had started.
A possible answer arrived at Hamilton on Friday, in the simple but near unworldly execution of the Sachin Tendulkar off-drive. Not once, mind you, but on several occasions. The push through the off side that took him from 96 to 99, and within a run of his 42nd test century, was enough to allow one to expire happy, satisfied that perfection had at last been witnessed. It was a piece of art on the move; a masterpiece of timing that summed the game up in a nanosecond.
It's hard to think of a more magnificent sight in cricket than the perfectly-executed, checked off-drive. As a shot it speaks of everything; defence, attack, the ability to process multiple factors in a flashpoint of time, technique, balance. It is a muscle-twitch of knowledge, a sub-conscious adjustment, and no-one in the world plays it better than Tendulkar. If we could just seal a video-clip of his best efforts in a time capsule, no one would ever have to explain why again.
Whatever your loyalties, there's a sense of privilege to be felt in watching the world's greatest living batsman playing so purposefully on his last visit to New Zealand. If there were any criticisms of Brian Lara (and there were a few, to be honest), one was that his commitment seemed to wane whenever the West Indies squared off against less fashionable teams. Tendulkar, on the other hand, allows his rivals no such relief.
Opposition bowlers might have been expecting some deterioration in his game as he moved towards his 36th birthday. But they will have already been disappointed. If anything, Tendulkar's more relaxed demeanour at the wicket, coupled with his vast wealth of experience, has only made him better. His tally of 42 test centuries and 43 one-day hundreds grows by the month. A century of centuries continues to beckon.
Consider this. He has scored three centuries in his most recent four tests, and since the start of the Australian series last October has averaged 64.72. Overall, he has struck 15 international hundreds since May 2007. Given he has previously collected 20 centuries in an 18-month period, the idea of him picking up another 15 before the end of the 2011 world cup seems far from fanciful. Mentally, he appears more composed and unhurried than ever.
Tendulkar might stand just 1.65m but he remains a giant of our time. Apart from his outrageous talent, two aspects of his career stand out beyond all others. One is his durability. When he made his test debut in 1989 at the age of 16, Cliff Richard was still belting out chart-toppers, the Berlin Wall had just been toppled, and George Bush senior had recently been inaugurated as president of the US. Included in the Pakistan side that Tendulkar faced on debut were Imran Khan and Javed Miandad.
He is the longest serving current player on the international circuit by a wide margin, and will soon stand alone as the most enduring, outside those whose careers were either interrupted by war or rejuvenated after a period of retirement. In other words he is a modern phenomenon; a player who has so fiercely guarded his love of the game from all distractions, that he still wants to play it for fun. It is a lesson many of his contemporaries could heed.
The other point has less to do with Tendulkar the batsman and more to do with Tendulkar the man, for you would have to go a long way to meet another sporting superstar with such natural grace and humility. That he has managed to remain largely unaffected in the face of extreme pressure; to live a semi-normal life even though he can't venture out publicly at home without being mobbed, hints pointedly at the steel of his character. I remember being unfortunate enough to occupy a hotel room directly opposite Tendulkar's when New Zealand were playing at Ahmedabad in 2003. The knocking on his door from folk who had somehow discovered his room number and smuggled themselves past armed guards continued uninterrupted all day. People were knocking on his door at midnight, and again at 7am, but there was never any anger. He remains, quaintly so in these times, a gentleman; an ambassador without even trying. Sports fans should consider seriously the chance of watching him bat for one last time on these shores. Don Bradman, no less, once said he saw his own likeness in some of Tendulkar's strokeplay. It was also The Don, at Trent Bridge in 1938, who stuck his head inside the dressing room as Stan McCabe was compiling one the all-time great double-centuries and said to his team-mates, "Come outside and take a look at this. You make never see the likes of it again." It's hard not to feel similarly about Tendulkar.
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