One of the defining aspects of Sachin Tendulkar’s cricketing career was that he carried the burden of a nation’s hope, not just of the Indian team. Its most public, vocal admission came in 2011 World Cup after the Indian team’s victory lap in Wankhede. “He has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years, so it’s time we carried him on our shoulders.” Few would have predicted then that the speaker of these words, Virat Kohli, 22 years old at the time, would go on to shoulder that burden himself.
Magical as their careers have been, both Tendulkar and Kohli carried another burden on their back: the burden of numbers. Of individual records. Both have been, and perhaps forever will be, accused of playing for that next record. Their performance would have ensured the record anyway but anything great wouldn’t pass muster if it didn’t also face the needle of scrutiny that poked at it to find a flaw. A hidden cheat code.
Probing the milestone question
At the core of the accusation is the questioning of intent — both Tendulkar and Kohli allegedly put individual milestones over and above the team’s cause. Surprisingly, though, this shift in intent supposedly emerged only when their score reached 80 or 90 and magically disappeared once they reached 100. It’s a bit laughable to ascribe such shape-shifting commitment that, based on the given logic, oscillated between personal and professional every time they came out to bat.
If being conservative in stroke play from 80 to 100 puts a question mark on the intent of a batter, then perhaps a bowler could also be faulted for leaking runs in search of a wicket when a more disciplined line could stem the flow (and help the team).
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Stats trick fans
Cricket is as much about statistics and numbers as it is about skill and temperament. Don Bradman’s zero in his last Test innings—more than seven decades ago—will forever remain a missed milestone for cricket enthusiasts: a career batting average of 100. Michael Bevan’s ODI average, spoken of in the same breath as his ability as the best finisher before MS Dhoni came along; Brian Lara’s 375; Saeed Anwar’s 194; Shahid Afridi’s 37 ball 100; Sangakkara’s four consecutive hundreds in the 2015 World Cup; Rohit Sharma’s three double hundreds in ODIs; and everything Sachin Tendulkar—generations of cricketers and fans have obsessed over milestones, held their breaths when anyone came close to breaking any of them.
There is no other way to see it: we are obsessed with records. And Kohli, who always seems to be on the verge of breaking some or the other record (or indeed creating one of his own), understands it too. But is that what drives his cricket? Not really.
What could indeed be the case is that for many Indian fans, his career for a while now has become about whether or not he breaks Tendulkar’s records of ‘most runs in ODI’ or ‘most centuries overall’. We are definitely looking forward to his 50th century, the most by any cricketer in ODIs. We want that to happen in this World Cup. It’s beguiling then how Kohli, not unbeknownst to him, straddles one group’s obsession over his records and another group’s criticism that he only plays for those records.
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Records just a part of the game
Many careers have been subjected to bitter scrutiny and the player reduced to being good enough only for a quick 30 or 40; that they never possessed the ability to hold themselves to play a longer innings. A batter’s overall strike rate isn’t placed above their overall average. A 25-ball 40 won’t often be picked over a 110-ball 130. And best batters make adjustments according to the format—Test, ODI, T20—or whether the team is batting first or chasing.
Clearly, match situations and team requirements take precedence. But to argue that any batter could score 40-45 centuries if only they wanted to is a bit like saying, ‘I got out at 10 off 3 deliveries because I was playing for the team; you made a 100 off 105 because you were playing for yourself’. Losers chatter. Champions play.
If Bradman or Tendulkar or Kohli stand above the rest, it’s partly because their individual records stand above everybody else’s. It’s a part of the game; not the game in and of itself. As fans, we are witnessing an era of Indian cricket full of defiance, possibilities, and competitiveness, no longer subdued by overseas pitches or ‘bigger’ teams. It’s a bit of a dampener then that fans’ rivalry or individual likings should degenerate into casting aspersions over an illustrious career. Players like Kohli don’t deploy mantras from self-help books to achieve the skills they do; they create their own. Individual records then become another kind of victory for them. And these personal victories don’t exist in silos. They can live harmoniously alongside the team’s victory. Question is: can we live with a Kohli century in a World Cup final loss?
Views are personal