The myth about Sachin Tendulkar and victory

Sachin Tendulkar has been on the winning side in 70 Test matches, the most of any Indian cricketer. In those 70 Tests, he has averaged 62.36, which is not insignificant. Of his 51 Test hundreds, 20 have come in the pursuit of victory. Yet somehow Tendulkar will call time on his career with the perception he never quite got it done when India needed him the most. Conventional wisdom holds that when the going got toughest, it was VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid that India could count on, not Tendulkar, who even felt the burden himself. That’s why his 103 not out in the fourth innings against England in Chennai after the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 was so important to him. Tendulkar needed to prove that he could deliver the goods when his team needed him to. The reality though, is more nuanced than that. Tendulkar is often accused of shrinking in the third and fourth innings of matches, but his numbers stack up against those of Dravid. Tendulkar has averaged 49.46 with three hundreds and seven fifties from 41 innings when India has come out on top. Dravid averaged 52.84 with three hundreds and seven fifties from 36 innings. If you take just the fourth innings, Tendulkar edges ahead. He averages 59.58 with one hundred and four fifties from 22 innings compared to Dravid’s average of 56.77 with three fifties from 19 innings. [caption id=“attachment_1165765” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sachin Tendulkar was on the winning side 70 times in Tests. Reuters[/caption] Dravid has also often been held up as the last man standing while the rest of India collapsed around him. That reputation was enhanced during the 2011 series in England, which India lost 4-0 despite three centuries from Dravid. But Dravid had only ever scored one hundred in a loss before that. Tendulkar has scored 11 Test hundreds in losses, including that heroic 136 against Pakistan in Chennai in 1999, a match India ended up losing by 12 runs. Admittedly, these numbers don’t say anything about the state of the game or the quality of their opponents. Breaking it down by country reveals that Tendulkar did not have much of an impact against Australia, averaging 30 from 8 innings when Inda won. He is overshadowed by Dravid, who averaged 55.00 from four innings and Laxman, who averaged 100.50 from 8 innings. Dravid also comes out on top away from home, where he averaged 107 in the fourth innings in victories, compared to Tendulkar’s average of 42.66. Take their overall records though (not just third and fourth innings) and Tendulkar averaged 80.68 in wins away from home, while Dravid averaged 69.48. Add draws to the equation and Laxman separates himself from the other two. He averaged a staggering 76.21 from 50 innings when his team batted a second time (3rd or 4th innings), while Dravid averaged 55.49 and Tendulkar 52.73. An average over 50 does not constitute failure though, no matter how you slice it. The way we remember games has also played a part in how we remember Tendulkar. Sunil Gavaskar’s 96 on a turning track in Bangalore is remembered as one of his finest innings, even though India lost that match by 16 runs. Gavaskar’s reputation as a fighter had long been established and India’s failure to win did not detract from the quality of his batting. Tendulkar’s courageous 136, however, is often held up as an example of how he failed take his team over the line. Never mind that India were 82 for five at one stage, that Tendulkar batted for 405 minutes despite battling a back strain and that India needed only 16 runs with three wickets in hand when he holed out at mid-off. Had Nayan Monga not thrown away his wicket or the tailenders taken India to victory, Tendulkar might well be remembered differently today. India’s epic win over Australia in Kolkata in 2001 is another case in point. Laxman and Dravid were magnificent and deserve the plaudits for turning the match on its head, but Australia still had to be bowled out the final day. India needed Harbhajan, who took six wickets, to complete possibly the greatest Test victory of all time. Tendulkar also happened to take three wickets in the fourth innings, including that of Matthew Hayden, who top scored for Australia with 67. Had Australia survived, Laxman’s 281 and Dravid’s 180 might well have taken on a different hue. Even when Tendulkar did take India across the finish line in Chennai in 2008, considerable credit was given to Virender Sehwag, whose rapid-fire 80 set the platform for Tendulkar to complete India’s chase. It appears to be a case of damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. On the flip side, Dravid had his fair share of failure too, averaging 26.42 in the third and fourth innings when India has lost (49 innings), while Tendulkar averaged 33.20 (56 innings). All of which proves that while we may celebrate individual achievement, cricket is a team game and more often than not, it takes more than a solitary contribution to win a Test match. Laxman, Dravid and Tendulkar have all won about 35% of the Test matches they played in because India as a team won about that often. In the final analysis, Tendulkar may not be the most clutch player India has produced, but that does not diminish him as a cricketer. It just makes him human, like the rest of us.