Stuck on 99, Sachin shows you can take nothing for granted

When he got out on 94 in Mumbai, it was all my fault and the fault of about nine crore others just like me. You see, in my hotel room in Indore, I had done everything – ‘do not disturb’ on the door, volume on the tv off, tea in hand, settled and comfortable and I was not going to move. And he started off with such precise power, he raced to 94 – raced, paced, chased; not, not chased. He was leading, he was in control – and then he seemed to hesitate for a moment. One too many drives to the off had been stopped and uppercut to the fence had already worked and then I saw it – and made the fatal error… the fatal error, I said to myself; those nine crore of us – said to ourselves – ‘he looks nervous.’ And he was gone… gone, as final as the glorious game of cricket can be. One slip – and 94 runs and 99 tons are forgotten — he could not get the punch right, and he was gone. As final as parting – that slightest of winces, and that walk back to the pavilion, as he can only walk, as if beyond cricket there is a world, but it is like the rising and falling of the tide, or the sun. It happens – but what happens on the cricket pitch has its own tide, its own sun – and Sachin Tendulkar had almost… almost… reached perfection for the 100th time. And we were the guilty ones, we doubted him, we did… [caption id=“attachment_147979” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“When we watched him reach 94 at Mumbai, it was a lesson for us all – to fully realise how difficult it is to score one century… just one and he has done it 99 times. AP”]  [/caption] When Gavaskar reached 30 and left Bradman behind, we thought he had climbed Everest – and he had. But Sachin has leapt from Everest into such thin air, that only he can breathe it – 99 centuries… 99, not 9 nor 90 but 99 – that is so amazing that we have stopped thinking about it. 99 times he has defied both bowlers and odds – for to score a hundred, you, on an average, face 200 balls. That is 200 times you have done what is so difficult to do even once – now multiply 200 by 99, and what do you get? You do the math. When we watched him reach 94 at Mumbai, it was a lesson for us all – to fully realise how difficult it is to score one century… just one and he has done it 99 times. That averages to about five centuries for each year he since he started scoring them at the international level… five per year. And then it struck, alone in my hotel room in Indore, alone with those other nine crore just like me watching – yes, he will score his 100th. In Australia, and then he will just keep on going… But one day, one day he will have to stop; even he… Then, oh, then, what will we do? What will we have left to yearn for, to burn for, to learn for. There are so few things left in this world of ours that are still a pure and simple challenge… overcome by pure and simple skill. Will we find another Sachin? No, No, No, we will not. There in his thin air, flying high above Everest, he is Sachin. It is as pure and as simple as that – there will never be another like him. So when he reaches 94 in Australia, I will never doubt him, neither will the nine crore others – in Meerut and Mussoorie and Mumbai, across our great country; across the world; across even thin air…