What I would like to see when Sachin Bats the Last Time

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“I play one every year. I’m going to play an innings before I retire when I’m going to hook. I’ll guarantee that. It will be in a Test match. You’ll know when I’m about to retire by that.” – Steve Waugh

 

 “I play one every year. I’m going to play an innings before I retire when I’m going to hook. I’ll guarantee that. It will be in a Test match. You’ll know when I’m about to retire by that.” – Steve Waugh

May be that would be the most touching moment of Indian Sports history when Sachin comes to bat at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai in few days and I want him to Bat like Sachin and no one else.

Few including me think, he stayed too long but he must have dreamt to play 200 tests and then call it a day and for someone who had been solo source of joy for Billions of Indian, its all fare.

I remember the era before Sachin started playing, India's used to loose matches at Sarjah like dogs in rain. It was so heartbreaking watching India loosing badly against Pakis and I used to pray to god to send someone who saves us from that humiliation.I never though God would have come himself!

I am more a Ganguly fan for what he did at Lord's. India needed that aggression from a captain since long and he did his job well and of course all his sixes. But for most of we Indians Sachin was the synonym of Cricket. Like every other mom my mom was used to ask me same question " Sachin er Century holo ?" That means " Did Sachin score century ?". 

After the much commercialization of Cricket and ILP saga happened and I just lost the interest in Cricket which was my first love at a time . In my childhood I used to cut the score cards from newspaper and sticky them to an album for records. Aha , those was days also.

Steve Waugh was a stroke player when he started out, but then he decided that their was too much risk associated with the the hook and the pull shot – so he simply cut them out. So did Sachin. He only played shots when the ball was pitched on his pads. He made the bowler’s bowl to him – it took him 10 hours but his innings of 241 was a classic in its own right. It showed that there were no limits to his skill. But age and injuries have their own way of limiting a player. The Tendulkar of today doesn’t play the hook or the venomous pull, nor does he use his feet against the spinner with any regularity. Rather, he waits and then he accumulates 

But when he steps out to bat in his last Test — against the West Indies at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai — the knock should be a throwback to the 90s, when Tendulkar was the heart of the Indian batting – when he would take on the bowlers and at times, would simply win the match for India. And that is why in his last innings – he needs to abandon the struggle and play with a freedom that defined his early years. Tendulkar against Shane Warne was a battle that defined them both, and Tendulkar almost always came out on top. The reason – he used his feet to get to the pitch of the ball to devastating effect

A well executed hook shot is perhaps the most exciting shot in cricket. There is risk, there is timing, and there is the perfect swivel. Tendulkar has all that – and he should lay it all out. The hook, the pull and the quick use of feet – three things we would love to see Tendulkar do in his final Test; three things for the old times; three things for the road.

 

Play like you played in 90's fearless and like no else, coz after that we wont be able to see that again live. Wont able to see you running with the Tricolor again.

"To me he will not just be remembered as a great player and a lovely human being, but as somebody who tried to learn Bengali for the last 14 years but never managed to do so!"
-Sourav Ganguly,

"There are two kind of batsmen in the world. One Sachin Tendulkar. Two all the others."
-Andy Flower,

 Farewell Little Master.