The world survived the Apocalypse, but can India survive Sachin’s retirement?

GROWN up Indian men, their stubbles haggard, are weeping copious tears. Pot-bellied uncles, who have seen their share of life’s challenges, are walking around like disoriented wrecks. Many are spending their Christmas pouring over YouTube videos from the past, clips that reveal to them hidden secrets from the past. All this could only mean one thing. Sachin Tendulkar has retired from one-day cricket without anything even remotely resembling a notice period. There is no motorcade for the greatest one-day career of them all. There is not even a press conference. The news breaks via the official BCCI Twitter handle, after which there are some cursory statements from BCCI honchos. The selectors don’t say anything about Tendulkar when they pick the one-day team for the forthcoming series against Pakistan. Rumor mills are on overdrive. A conspiracy theory suggests that Tendulkar’s retirement is a strategic distraction from the mass protests triggered by a gangrape in Delhi. Others think he’s been forced into retirement by the selectors, thereby denying him a farewell series. “It’s time to retire from watching cricket,” says a tweet, echoing many others. “It’s time one-dayers are retired from the sport,” says another. These irrational reactions must tell us something. A living, breathing, cultural phenomenon will no longer swirl around the country’s TV screens. We have seen the last of Amitabh Bachchan in a blue jersey, Rajinikanth with a bat and Shah Rukh Khan in an India helmet. Such was his aura. Tendulkar is yet to retire from Test cricket and he may continue to play for another series. Or maybe another year or two. One can never be sure. Yet his departure from the one-day format carries with it a lasting significance for Tendulkar owned the one-day game like none other. Viv Richards had the dominance but not the longevity, Javed Miandad the cunning but not the versatility, Michael Bevan the doggedness but not the chutzpah. Tendulkar had it all. He adapted to the vagaries of the one-day game. He knew how to anchor the middleorder and ushered in a paradigm shift when he was promoted to open. He had a more-than-handy record with the ball—bowling medium-pace, offspin and legbreaks—and was, for most parts, an electric outfielder. Some of his catches and run-outs turned games. His records will remain unmatched. While it is conceivable that another cricketer gets close to 51 Test hundreds, it is impossible to imagine anyone scoring 49 in the shorter format. That is simply outrageous, a record so far out of range as Bradman’s Test average (of 99.94) is from the rest. Nobody in their right minds is going to get anywhere close to the 18,426 runs he has made in ODIs; nobody is going to even attempt it. But records can tell you only so much. Tendulkar’s influence runs far beyond numbers. Indians of a certain vintage have most of his one-day career etched in his memory. Wake them up in the middle of the night and they will tell you exactly when and against who Tendulkar struck a particular six. Remind them of Henry Olonga in Sharjah and their mind will turn to Tendulkar smashing him around the park; say Brett Lee in Sydney and they will describe the blistering drives that Tendulkar played. Tendulkar is also the reason many people have missed the final part of many one-day games. When Tendulkar got out in a run-chase, many spectators, consigned to defeat, witched off the TV sets. When he was out in the Natwest Series final in 2002—with India at 146 for 5 chasing 326—Mohammad Kaif’s parents left their home to watch the newlyreleased Devdas. A few hours later they were being interviewed by TV channels. Kaif and Yuvraj Singh had led India to an improbable win. Tendulkar began his one-day career in whites–he even sported a white helmet in his first few series. He went on to wear various shades of blue, ranging from the azure in an early series in New Zealand, the dark navy blue at the 1992 World Cup, the sky blue in the 1996 World Cup, all the way to the bright “bleeding” blue in the 2011 World Cup. He has ridden the waves of change of the last twenty three years and has constantly adapted—or sometimes initiated the change—in a rapidly changing format. But Tendulkar’s most lasting legacy will remain how he inspired so many young kids to take up the game in the first place. Ten members of India’s World Cup winning squad, most of whom formed the core, were between 27 and 32. Almost all of them were drawn to cricket because of Tendulkar. Many have talked about idolising him in their impressionable years and revealed how they picked up heavy bats–the kind that he uses–before exchanging them for lighter ones. Mahendra Singh Dhoni once said most of the cricket he watched as a kid was restricted to Tendulkar’s batting. He also said how he stopped watching the 2003 World Cup final— between Australia and India—the moment Tendulkar got out. This is how deeply Tendulkar has been ingrained in the young Indian psyche, this is how integral he has been to the development of the generation that followed. Which is why the most memorable part of the 2011 World Cup celebrations was when Virat Kohli, after chairing Tendulkar and parading him around the stadium, said to the TV cameras: “Tendulkar has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It is time we carried him on our shoulders.” Kohli wasn’t just speaking for himself. He was speaking for a generation of cricket fans, the same set who will now have to grapple with the massive void that Tendulkar’s exit has left in their lives. For these millions from the Tendulkar generation, watching India’s one-day matches in the near future will no doubt be one heck of a challenge.