... and then there were none ...

Wrote this one a while back...but thought I was being too sentimental about the sport. I guess I will let it be read though...maybe I am being too senti. Who gives a crap...:)

also posted at cricket-center.blogspot.com (a friends blog, that's actually what I wrote it for)

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So what happened to Tendulkar again? Oh that’s right; he failed to win India a match once again. Really, he’s over the hill now isn’t he? He is the mediocre shadow of his colossal self. He is the worst player in the Indian team today. He does not even warrant a place in the eleven. Let’s boo him come on…boo Tendulkar boo. Boo for being the hero of a sick team for so long. Boo for almost being the god amongst men for as long as most people remember watching cricket. Boo for being there when the team went through hell and boo for being there when you took on other teams single handedly to make up for the mediocrity and insincerity of your other players. Come on lets boo him..

But can you boo a person like that and not feel a slight bit immoral about it. A man who has borne the brunt of the expectations of a hungry nation. A person whose achievements bear no count. A person who stood alone in the ruins once and saw an empire built around himself. The fact remains that the emperor of that empire was once Ganguly and now it’s Dravid, who’s been the logical successor. But the fact also remains that the empire was always built around one person. There was one constant in a team plagued by controversies ranging from betting and fixing to corruption and politics. There was one person you would always look up to and say – please perform a miracle today…please make us happy. There was this one person people trusted would save any game. Any game…absolutely any situation. He could make your day, he could move the nation…he could even move the stock market they said. Let’s boo him today?

Now the incident where the hero was booed has been exaggerated to a hype by the press and commentators. It is always fun to see the mighty fall; it is always spectacular to see a hero become human, breathtaking to see the wings of an angel clipped. The fall of the one Sourav Ganguly was magnificent wasn’t it? It sold more newspapers than any political downfall. We saw one mighty hero fall and that was a thrill. Lets do it to the mightiest one of them all next.

Now let’s face the facts. Sachin Tendulkar has been playing a game for sixteen years. A virtual eternity when talking of sports and sportsmen. Heroes have their time and heroes have a mortal soul. Michael Jordan fell, so did Mohammed Ali. Babe Ruth’s gone and so is Donald Bradman. Sachin Tendulkar is not yet spent but one day he will be. I think that the boos some people heard in Mumbai recently were a sounds of things to come. Indian public have never been very good at retiring heroes. In any field (not just cricket or sports) they have always taken their heroes off pedestals and thrown them away like toys they don’t want anymore. They did it to Sourav Ganguly recently. Much as he deserved to be out of the team, he did not deserve to be the joke that he became in media and amongst “pundits”. They will do it to Sachin Tendulkar one day and Rahul Dravid after that. Oh but they will remember these guys…once the fog of time clears things, they will remember these three. How can you ever forget the three massive figures in Indian cricket who stood in filth once and who proudly shone in their blue armors a decade later?