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A Feature by Raghuram Cadambi, December 12, 2006

When the Indians faced the South Africans in the fifth and final one-dayer at the Centurion, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar found himself in an unfamiliar position. He played and missed, he played and missed. The bowlers went past his thick MRF blade and through him. It was as if we were watching a different Tendulkar made of an inferior mould rather than a demi-God we were so used to watching.

As Tendulkar grafted his way to a 55 from 90-odd balls, it was both a pain and an education to watch him fight it out like a mere mortal. It seemed like all he could do out there was miss or get hit on the pads. It was painful to watch him struggle to come to terms with a quality South African attack, an attack of the quality of which he would have toyed with a decade or so ago. But it was also an education. It was an education to watch how a man fights it out with a will to stay out there in the middle though his form had completely deserted him.

The Little Master could have thrown it away as others would have in his situation, but no, he fought. He was there for the team, and he was there for the country. And it was a lesson for so many youngsters watching that game. If a man who could dominate the greatest bowlers of his day with unbelievable ease was prepared to work so hard in the face of adversity, if this isn't a lesson enough, nothing can be. Most people who watched that innings might well go on criticizing him and say that Sachin today is not the best batsman in the world, but what they don't get is that he still is every bit a great man as he was; and that he always will be.

And now the Wanderers beckons. He has always been subject to mindless criticism but that hardly matters. What matters is what is going through his mind. There have been challenges and there have been pressures. But Tendulkar has stood the test of time. And this, perhaps, will be his greatest challenge. He has lost a step or two, and his reflexes aren't as good as they used to be. But you must remember that Tendulkar has mentally been one of the strongest cricketers and he has allowed his bat to respond every single time. Today, Lara might still thrill crowds; Ponting might well be the most consistent batsman in the world, but don't count Tendulkar out, not yet at least. A tiger is at his most dangerous when he is wounded. A champion fights the hardest when he has his back against the wall. The first test at the Wanderers might well reiterate this. Till then, though, a nation waits with bated breath.
 

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