Tendulkar - Great performer but poor finisher

In 1989 during one of the matches between India-Pakistan, India lost all of its prominent figures and score was far away from the target. Suddenly eighteen years old boy appear and rejuvenate the match. His continuous 4 sixes, made everyone to ask, who is this? He is nothing but our hero of this article SR Tendulkar. In so many matches, he brought the India to the verge of the victory, just to the verge, but eventually India lost. Unfortunately till now, he is following the same pattern.

He is the highest run scorer in both one day and test matches. He never got into any controversies. His good friend Vinod Kambli raised some concerns against him, he did not say even a single word, it doubled his respect in the public. Cricket fans certainly would have witnessed lot of one day flies in the cricket, don’t think they are stars in one day matches, just they performed for one day and they survived in the team for another ten matches without doing anything. Since 1989, cricket fans could never think of that game without this little master, so many people developed interest on this game just because of this master blaster.

After cricketers of 1980s, he is the only player having lot of charisma. During my school days, when we were playing, everyone used to have our favorite star in the mind and try to imitate like Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gaveskar, Vengsarkar, Sri Kanth and Mohindar Amarnath. Most of the criketers, well before their retirement, somehow they failed to retain their good name. Their exit from the cricket was very pathetic, but during their peak time and when they were in their good form, just because of them India won significant number of matches.Especially in case of Gaveskar and Ravi Shastri, there were huge public outcry, In fact that was true that moment Mr. Shastri reached forty nine runs, better switch of the television and go to do some other work, but it never happened in case of Tendulkar. He never played for his own records and pace of the game never got retarded for his personal mileage.

He is very specific about his body language, even when he was hurt by any bouncers, he never showed that pain out, and just he continue with the game. We have seen so many players, moment they hit one six or four, they used to ask 12^th man to bring water, gloves, pads, cap, whatever they could change in the middle of the ground, they change everything, but he never do such a silly act.

He is such an excellent performer but he is having some weakness in giving positive finish. More over when he is performing, none of the players are doing well. When he is carrying the whole weight of the team in his shoulder, both top order and middle order are collapsing like a pack of cards, certainly this is not his fault. At the same time, Tendulkar is not a match winning player, like the stars mentioned above, he never converted any match to the victory from the sure loss but he is such a top notch morale booster for the team. In multiple instances, he brought the match to the brink of the victory, but never won. Badly India is in need of someone like Kapil Dev or Rahul Dravid, Lance Klusener or Micheal Bevan to give good finish. It is very difficult to have 44.5 average run rate after 436 matches. He is the only player, played the most number of matches. New comers have to learn from his dedication and consistency.