What He Meant to Me

A digitally signed photo of the man, "just for me", courtesy of BCCI.

For the past one month, and certainly the last one week, all of India and Indians everywhere have been abuzz with only one thing - Sachin Tendulkar's retirement.  Much has been said in infinite blogs and articles around the world about his cricketing accomplishments, and I have nothing to add to that.  I enjoy the statistics but do not care enough to have them memorized.  Honestly, if so much had not been made about his last test being his 200th, I would not have remembered it.  Neither can I confidently tell you if his 100 international centuries are made up of 51 or 49 Test centuries.  These things are important, and certainly point to Sachin's cricketing genius, but are immaterial to me.  If we have to rely on numbers, then we can find many ways to argue all sorts of things, including the idea that Sachin does not make it into the list of Top 25 batsman ever, as this article does.  So mere statistics are futile and do not capture what Sachin Tendulkar meant to me.

Though Sachin made his debut when I was too young to appreciate the game, his years on the field coincided with my years picking up the game.  I quickly became an Indian cricket fan because of the nation it represented, but as any sports fan, desired wins and accolades to validate that crazed support.  Alas, those were far and few.  India as an economy was struggling and Indians as athletes had virtually no one to point to.  Seeing the teams from Australia, West Indies, and even across the border in Pakistan, it was easy to say that Indians simply cannot play sports.  Amidst that backdrop stood Sachin, almost alone.  He was simply the best batsman playing the game.  You did not need numbers, you merely needed to watch him.  The fluidity, the ease, the confidence; these could not be captured with statistics, but sitting through just one innings of him making great bowlers look ordinary was enough to convince you that he was special.  While any lover of the game could appreciate the talent, only an Indian fan can appreciate the other thing he gave us - Hope.  

There were other good players in the team, but no one provided the confidence that India could win as Sachin could.  As long as he was there, we were fine.  Our scorecard would be in tatters, but if Sachin was n.o., there was hope.  We would end a day's play of Test cricket hundreds of runs behind, but if I saw that Sachin was still to bat, I knew we could win.  More than any one special innings or series, the child in me remembers that hope.  Single-handedly, to me Sachin represented the Hope - that India could win and in a larger sense, that India could emerge as a great nation once again.

In many ways, the end of his career marks the end of a childhood for many of us.  The outpouring of love for him tells me that I am not alone in feeling this.  He has been a hero to hundreds of millions of people, and that he has done so with grace and humility mark him as an even more special human being.  I cannot tell you that this much fame and support would not go to my head.  How he maintained his dignity and respect for the game is commendable.  No further proof of this is needed than his farewell speech.  If his career was proof that he was a great representative of the game, then his life (and that speech) were proof that he is a great representative of India.

All I can say, is Thank You.  With wet eyes that mark any ending, I can say no more than that.  I am blessed for having spent my childhood watching you, and it truly truly has been fun.