Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
If Hussey had the same thought process as Sachin, Pakistan would've won the Sydney test....and that would've resulted in bookies choking the living daylight out of Kamran and Salman :)
Re: Tendulkar’s Commitment To Team India
Do not agree. Although it would be very harsh to criticise Tendulkar here because he was the top scorer in both innings - the other batsmen in particular Raina and Laxman should have also taken responsibility - to say that he has never played for records or does n’t care about his average would also be wrong.
However if someone had said that to me about Viv Richards I would have believed it unreservedly because the guy just never played for personal records or averages…period. Not that I think that there is anything wrong with that. Call it hunger, motivation or plain selfishness, all great sportsmen need to be a bit selfish to accomplish their goals (cf. Akram). Gavaskar desperately wanted to break Bradman’s the then record of 29 test centuries. I remember Kapil playing on well past his prime just so he could stay ahead of Hadlee! Border was record obsessed, so was Miandad to a degree, so was Warne, so is Ponting to a degree, so are most cricketers
Remember how angrily Tendulkar (194*) reacted when Dravid declared the innings in the Multan test against Pakistan
Don’t be so naive. Just because Akram has said something in a paper does not mean he cannot hold a different opinion in private :). Most great sportsmen will not (and should not) talk ill of a fellow great player in public esp. when their positives far outweigh their negatives…unless you are ofcourse Botham and Ian Chappell
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
Lads it is called making records for yourself and trying to better your average at the expense of your country, and to think the country think he is a god.
very disappointed to read these comments ehsan. i guess i had you all wrong.
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
very disappointed to read these comments ehsan. i guess i had you all wrong.
Before getting too disappointed can you give me a reason why he didnt even try to at least make sure that India didn't lose by an innings. Maybe he was afraid that he will get out and his average will get affected. As I said before he is one of the greatest batsmen of our era but he is obsessed with records, whether he admits it or not. And why is that you people think he is above criticism.
Re: Tendulkar’s Commitment To Team India
Who wouldn’t want to make records? That’s not the point.
Do they want to make them at the expense of the team’s success? That’s a different story.
For the record I am not a Sachin worshipper. He is absolutely awesome but nobody is immune to criticism. But its absolutely ridiculous to suggest that he plays for himself ONLY and doesn’t care about the team. It’s actually so ridiculous that I shall stop bothering to comment on it 
Cheers
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
Before getting too disappointed can you give me a reason why he didnt even try to at least make sure that India didn't lose by an innings. Maybe he was afraid that he will get out and his average will get affected. As I said before he is one of the greatest batsmen of our era but he is obsessed with records, whether he admits it or not. And why is that you people think he is above criticism.
Unfortunately I do not have a hotline with SRT so I don't know HIS actual reason for not guarding the strike. It makes total sense that to have any chance to save the game you would need the tail enders to bat well .. so it makes sense to not guard the strike cuz how long is thhat going to last? Yes it could have easily lasted long enough to avoid the innings defeat. Why not do it then? I have no idea. Maybe they don't give a F if it's innings defeat or not. that's just on paper. Maybe he personally didn't care if it's an innings defeat. Maybe an innings defeat would be a bigggest smack to the players and motivate them for the next game. It's ridiculous but its common knowledge that India always does SHT in the first game of almost all test series (home or away) only to bounce back later.
So yeah. I don't know why he didn't try his heart out to save the innings defeat. But I think it's ridiculous to conclude that the reason was that "hey.. i already got my 100.. who gives a fk.. ".
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
Unfortunately I do not have a hotline with SRT so I don't know HIS actual reason for not guarding the strike. It makes total sense that to have any chance to save the game you would need the tail enders to bat well .. so it makes sense to not guard the strike cuz how long is thhat going to last? Yes it could have easily lasted long enough to avoid the innings defeat. Why not do it then? I have no idea. Maybe they don't give a F if it's innings defeat or not. that's just on paper. Maybe he personally didn't care if it's an innings defeat. Maybe an innings defeat would be a bigggest smack to the players and motivate them for the next game. It's ridiculous but its common knowledge that India always does SHT in the first game of almost all test series (home or away) only to bounce back later.
So yeah. I don't know why he didn't try his heart out to save the innings defeat. But I think it's ridiculous to conclude that the reason was that "hey.. i already got my 100.. who gives a fk.. ".
maybe it was this, maybe it was that but no it can never be that he thought about his average instead of playing for his own country. maybe, who knows.
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
Who wouldn't want to make records? That's not the point.
Do they want to make them at the expense of the team's success? That's a different story.
For the record I am not a Sachin worshipper. He is absolutely awesome but nobody is immune to criticism. But its absolutely ridiculous to suggest that he plays for himself ONLY and doesn't care about the team. It's actually so ridiculous that I shall stop bothering to comment on it :D
Cheers
Agreed. Not always, but Yes sometimes (example: Multan test above)
And I did not criticise him here
Maybe we should only criticise the last two tailenders for surrendering so meekly. Afterall Bhajji did add 100 odd with Laxman in that amazing win against Australia recently (albeit at home)
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
everyone also has eyes, ears, nose, arms, legs etc. It depends what you want to concentrate on.
Exactly !
Tandulakar is the best this century has produced !
Like any other "Experienced player who plays his cricket from A to Z, and also has the captaincy experience knows exactly what to do under given circumstances.
In a positive way this whit about Tandulkar is a gift that only he can explain himself. :D
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
maybe it was this, maybe it was that but no it can never be that he thought about his average instead of playing for his own country. maybe, who knows.
If Tendulkar had shown a pattern of putting self before the team, then criticism is warranted. Agreed his behavior in Multan was self-serving. But overall, in my opinion, he has done the best for his team.
Sharabee made some interesting points to potentially explain Tendulkar's performance. It is interesting that you choose to ignore those potential explanations and focus on only one possibility - that he cares for average more than Team India.
Consider his long body of work, I am willing to give (the batsman) benefit of the doubt. (And no, I do not think he is god or he is above criticism, just that in this instance, the criticism may be misdirected.)
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
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Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
If Tendulkar had shown a pattern of putting self before the team, then criticism is warranted. Agreed his behavior in Multan was self-serving. But overall, in my opinion, he has done the best for his team.
Sharabee made some interesting points to potentially explain Tendulkar's performance. It is interesting that you choose to ignore those potential explanations and focus on only one possibility - that he cares for average more than Team India.
Consider his long body of work, I am willing to give (the batsman) benefit of the doubt. (And no, I do not think he is god or he is above criticism, just that in this instance, the criticism may be misdirected.)
I did not ignore what Sharabee said nor did he make any strong points. It was maybe this or maybe that in his bid to justify Tendulkar's behaviour during that inning. Once again it shows that any criticism of Tendulkar and the Indians get very upset. No where did I say that he does this regularly, all I said was that he put his own interest above his country's when he could have taken cahrge and at least saved an innings defeat. That is my view and i think it has lot of merit. None of you have come upwith any concrete reason to refute it.
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
"Once again it shows that any criticism of Tendulkar and the Indians get very upset. "
I can't speak for other Indians, but I am definitely not upset :). I just respectfully disagree with your conclusion.
A defeat is a defeat. While I cannot get inside Tendulkar's head, maybe he was looking at the bigger picture - by trusting the tailenders, he was hoping to do a Laxman - and maybe even save the Test match by putting up 100 run partnership with each. And to do this, he may have realized he needed to trust them. And Sree had shown in India he was capable of hanging around. So it was all or nothing - trust them and save the match, or trust them and get bowled out quickly.
Maybe, just maybe, he cared more for the remote possibility of being able to save the Test by trusting the tailenders.
It is possible what you are saying may be true. Even if that were the case, it makes no difference to me whether we lost by an inning or just lost. (I know that goes against conventional thinking.) Hence I do not consider this specific instance as him putting his interest above the team's interest.
Re: Tendulkar's Commitment To Team India
^ let's just say we agree to disagree. :)