Sachin Tendulkar - The criticism phenomena

Criticism is a part and parcel of our everyday life. Every man wishes that he reaches a point where there would be no more of this criticism. Unfortunately, it is not to be. It is a bitter fact that no matter what you do or how much you achieve, you are bound to face criticism; it is a companion for life. A prime example for this is nobody better than the Indian batting maestro Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. After 22 years of a legendary international career, more than thirty thousand runs scored, and after a century of centuries, he still faces severe criticism. He has been facing it all through his career. The current form isn’t helping him either.

The recent Test series against the Kiwis hasn’t been the greatest of his career; in fact it has happened only once before in his illustrious career that he had his stumps wrecked thrice in a row. His performance in the two-match series has created a stir all over the nation and his retirement debate has grabbed more headlines than the “coalgate scam”. Every news channel is running special segments,calling experts of the game asking them if it’s time; time for the master to call it a day. Ignorant and ill-informed people, people who don’t know ABC of cricket are talking about his footwork. Things like that are not new. This has been happening since the last four to five years, especially when he has a couple of bad innings. He has become synonymous with centuries. Anything less than a century is considered an average innings.

Such retirement talks were in full force after India’s disastrous first round exit from the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean. The critics and media were all over him; they were urging him to retire. The master had failed. Retirement looked evident. But Tendulkar had different plans; he did not speak a word, his bat spoke. He answered all his critics, not with words but with action, as he always does. He came back with the most glorious two years of his career. He started looking like his 18-year-old self when the world had first took notice of him. The vintage Tendulkar was back. He was back with a bang. Who can forget the superman innings at Gwalior against a potent South African bowling attack when Sachin became the first man on the planet to score a double hundred in ODI cricket. He went on to score more than 1000 runs in both the ODI and Test format in the calender year of 2008. All this at the age of 37. The purple patch continued until late 2010.The criticism had ceased.

Sachin is 39 now, the oldest of the current lot younger only second to Australia’s Bradley Hogg. The form is deteriorating. Even after scoring the 100th century, the pressure to perform exists. The critics have awakened and pounced upon him in no time. They are all over him at the moment. It is to be seen if they have the last laugh or if Sachin’s bat speaks once again and silence them – all over again.