Hyderabad: It was the perfect pitch of his home town on which he took his final bow.
Sachin Tendulkar's voice was perfect pitch right through a remarkably clear-thinking speech so good was it that at once people were saying that he should be in politics because he spoke as well as Barack Obama does. There was none of the squeaky voice that was his from his youth through most of his career. Today, he speaks so clearly that great things must lie in wait for him in the public domain.
As Anjali Tendulkar pointed out, he belongs to all of India, which means narrow definitions like representing one constituency or one state are ruled out. He will be a national figure of inspiration for having demonstrated through most art of his 24-year international career that Indians can excel on the world stage too. The stage will be set for the future soon as Sachin feels he has devoted enough time to his young children to make up for all the long absences.
The Mumbai CA and BCCI had gone out of the way to make arrangements for the farewell Test and anyone looking for holes would have to be nit-picking. Most of the public events around the farewell were well organised even if they kept inviting him on to the stage to receive all kinds of awards, including one from the Sri Lankan government. The electronic media and photographers were about the only ones pushing and shoving around the Little Master, much to his annoyance.
The reassuring presence of Anjali was there at the end to cool down the master batsman whenever he felt choked by the enthusiasm and emotion being shown all around him. When the ball boys and ground staff were seeking to come closer, Sachin kept yelling -“10 metres please, 10 metres“ -but who would listen in such an atmosphere just as he was being carried around the Wankhede Stadium on the shoulders of his skipper Dhoni and others, Anjali kept a 'controlling' hand on his shoulder asking him to take it easy .
The innings was as near perfect as you could expect in such extraordinary circumstances. Save for his eagerness in going for the upper cut against Tino Best and being overambitious about gathering runs in what may be termed a short cut so far as run gathering in Tests in concerned, he looked competent enough at the crease while keeping his emotions at bay. Compare that with Sir Donald Bradman and there is ready proof of who managed the farewells better.
History shows Bradman made a scratching 30 in his very last time at the crease in the second of testimonial matches (for Kippax and Oldfield first and then for A.J. Richardson) in Australia after having returned on the SSOrontes to Adelaide port to a rousing reception post-1948 Ashes tour with his Dream Team.
Having been dismissed for 30, Bradman then trod on the ball while fielding and had to be helped off the field. “The gods who had given him so much genius, had had their last sardonic laugh,“ is how Charles Williams described it in what remains Bradman's best biography .
History also records that, earlier, while starting his last Test innings with an average of 101.39 Bradman needed only four runs not only to touch 7,000 Test runs but also to ensure an average above 100. Rendered nervous and anxious after Norman Yardley and his men formed a guard of honour for his arrival at the crease at The Oval, Bradman, with tears in his eyes, barely saw the first ball that he somehow managed to keep out. Next ball, he did not spot the Eric Hollies googly. Of perfect length, it went off the inside edge and dislodged the off bail.
As if to make it worse for the greatest batsman of them all, there were two 'frenemies' of his who rolled over with laughter in the press box, amused by his failure to score in his farewell Test innings. Jack Fingleton and Bill O'Reilly were the rebels who hated Bradman.
“O'Reilley nakedly exposes the disloyalty I had to endure during my early years as Australian captain, a disloyalty based purely on jealousy and religion. Jack Fingleton was the ring-leader. He conducted a vendetta against me all his life and it was most distasteful because he was a prolific writer of books and articles,“ Bradman wrote.
Let us just say that the gods were kinder to Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar just as much as he was kind to his cricket mates. He is a universally loved cricketer who was given a grand farewell.
