Sri Lanka Cricket / Andrew Hughes / 19 August 2008 /

Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest one day batsmen of all time and India are floundering without him, says Andrew Hughes.

Sir Don Bradman thought Sachin Tendulkar was the closest batsman of the modern era to himself in terms of technique and temperament. Accolades don't come much more glittering than that.

At the age of thirty-five, the little master may not be quite the player he was. These days he is an accumulator whereas he once studiously took attacks apart. The pressure on his body has been relentless and he has been more prone to injury in recent years. But he remains an unmoveable presence in the Indian batting line-up. Ganguly, Laxman and Dravid will get the chop long before Sachin. After all, which selector would dare to drop a cricketing icon?

Tendulkar goes about his business in a bubble of greatness. His statistical achievements are not pretty little scores or fleeting records, but enormous, monumental numbers. He has already scored more runs than Alan Border, Steve Waugh and Sunil Gavaskar and is within eighty of becoming the top run scorer in Test history. He is also only six matches away from overtaking Alan Border as the second most capped Test player in history.

It is therefore a mild surprise to find that he is only nineteenth on the list of career averages, with the likes of Ponting, Kallis and even Sangakkara ahead of him. Since batting average is often held up as the beginning and the end of the measure of a batsman's worth, some more cynical cricket followers are prone to insinuating that he is not a great batsman, merely a very good one who benefited from the early start he made to his international career. Hang around long enough in the modern era, the statistics seem to say, and you'll eventually break records.

Supporting evidence for this view comes with the fact that there are a clutch of players in with a chance of overhauling his records in runs scored and matches played. Ponting and Kallis are to the fore, but the likes of Sangakkara, Smith and Jayawardene, with age on their side, could conceivably overtake him, assuming Tendulkar retires at some point in the next two or three years. His record number of Test centuries is also under threat, with both Ponting and Kallis in with a realistic chance of catching him.

But statistics sometimes offer only a shallow reflection. Tendulkar's early start and the burgeoning schedule of the last twenty years gave him perhaps more opportunity to amass runs than others have had. But we should ask why was it that he got the chance to play for India at the age of sixteen? And why was it that he has, injury permitting, been ever present for his country for nineteen years? Lesser batsmen suffer poor form, are dropped, have spells out of the team. That has not happened to Tendulkar. His genius was spotted at an early age, he has never stopped working at his game and in addition to his technical mastery, it is his sheer unrelenting consistency that sets him apart.

And if anyone were still to doubt his credentials for greatness, they should remember the nine centuries he has hit against Australia, the dominant force of the last twenty years. From his undefeated century at Sydney as a nineteen year old, to his ton at Adelaide last winter, he has produced his best when facing the best.

And there is one statistical arena where his domination remains unchallenged. In one day cricket, he has amassed 16361 runs, an astonishing 3673 clear of his nearest challenger. He has played in 417 matches, 84 clear of Dravid in second place and his 42 one day centuries are 15 clear of the next highest. None of the current players have a prayer of catching up with him. Tendulkar is the greatest one day batsman of all time.

Unfortunately for India, his absence means they are desperately exposed against the deadly Sri Lankan duo of Mendis and Murali. Crushed by eight wickets in the first one day international, they are in desperate need of inspiration and are as long as [2.24] for victory in the second match of the series with the Sri Lankans on [1.61]

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