Recently there has been a tattletale about Sachin Tendular breaking Brian Lara’s world record. Have read several articles and reviews on them. The two school of thoughts support Sachin’s ability and creditability he has earned all these years. However, the rest want him to just retire and make way for others. The last match, India vs Australia test series being played at Banglore, India has left Sachin 15 runs behind the world record Brian Lara has made. Although Sachin has played in fewer tests and Lara has played 11 innings more than Sachin. Sachin scores a 50+ in every 2.5 innings, which means, if Sachin had played 195 innings, he would have crossed the 10,000 mark earlier.
Brian Lara is the most technically skilled batsman since Bradman, videos of whom are often misleading because of the lack of good video technology during the Don’s era. Lara commands almost all the shots in the cricket book with unparalleled brilliance. His cut shot is both breathtaking and flexible-like most of the best back foot players he can play it with equal felicity both in front of and behind square. His on drive, probably his pet shot, is ferocious-particularly when played down the wicket against slow bowlers.
If you talk of consistency, Tendulkar is peerless in contemporary cricket-one of those rarities who hardly seem to go through a bad patch. Lara has seen amazing heights including his world-record knock of 375 against England as well as abysmal lows when he appeared as if he couldn’t buy a run if he wanted to. No matter what achievement Lara can put forth, there’s always an equally compelling antithesis of what a great batsman should be doing-including several years out of cricket at various times for various reasons. His amazing 2-2 Test series against Australia in 1999 is balanced out with his impotent showings in the Bridgetown Test and the series in 2000 against the same team. His remarkable display against Murali and company in Sri Lanka in 2001 is tempered with his shameful batting displays on the 1999 South African tour that ended in a 5-0 whitewash.
One of the reviews supported Sachin and said “Lara is well known for his Test records but Sachin has better records in all forms of cricket. The world cups are the highest level of competition in any sports. He was the top run scorer in 2 world cups and man of the tournament in 2003 world cup. Sachin averages 59.73 in the world cups.” Another one mentioned “In Test cricket, both are of similar ability, Tendulkar shades it because of his record against Australia and his temperament, Lara’s tendency to slash outside the off-stump got him into a lot of trouble in the late 90’s (just when Sachin was scoring runs for fun)”. On common grounds, Sachin all together is a more consistent player than Lara.
But seeing the other side of the coin, Sachin has been chasing Brian Lara’s record for the past 6 innings. When India – Australia innings started in Bangalore he was 77 runs behind the world record, 11953. Now he is still 15 runs to catch up after the 5th day test series in Banglore. Even as Sachin is crawling towards that pinnacle of achievement, it is but a mere formality as to when would Ponting (10222 runs before Australia series) race past Sachin in record number of runs in Test Cricket. Ponting has been phenomenal in the past 4 years especially, raking up a world record 16 centuries as captain alone in this period. So, really what World Record are we talking about here? Test fans, especially in India and the Indian media should be realistic and accept that Sachin will not hold the world record number of Test runs (Ponting is 2 years younger to Sachin) when he retires from Test cricket.
So will the selectors still get Sachin to make the world record or just drop him if he fails to perform? This is one question which still needs an answer.
