Published: Mar 18, 2013, 03:33 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 18, 2016, 01:06 PM (IST)
Sachin Tendulkar played his last One-Day International on March 18, 2012. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back at a match whose significance was only realised nine months later.
No, we did not have an idea that it was going to be his last. No one did.
I clearly remember it was a Sunday. I was in Mumbai then, enjoying a welcome break after a tiresome six-day week.
Pakistan had amassed 329 for 6. Both their openers had scored hundreds, and Younis Khan had a blast as well. To add to India’s woes, Mohammad Hafeez, that arch nemesis of left-handed batsmen, removed Gautam Gambhir for a duck in the second ball of India’s innings.
Gambhir gone. No Virender Sehwag. How were India supposed to chase down 330?
The answer came soon. Virat Kohli, the blue-eyed boy of Indian cricket, slashed hard at Umar Gul, and got a four. He followed it up with a pull in the next over off Aizaz Cheema, who had replaced Hafeez by now — could never understand why. Then they took a single.
Sachin Tendulkar had faced two balls till then, and had scored two singles. But now, as Cheema pitched one marginally short outside the off-stump and the ball swerved out, ever so fractionally, The Master caressed it through the covers. The balance was perfect, the timing exquisite, the execution clinical. Who said he was losing his form?
India were 32 for 1 after 4.5 overs. Cheema, possibly oblivious of the World Cup encounter between the two teams from 2003, tried to bounce Tendulkar. The ball deviated a bit and rose, outside off-stump; Tendulkar arched backwards, his torso bending in a beautiful arc; the upper-cut soared over the slips and cleared the rope. Six!
Mirpur erupted. Kohli was forgotten. The target was forgotten. The significance of the clash was forgotten. And then, as the runs dried up a bit, Tendulkar took on Cheema again, who pitched one up on off-middle. Tendulkar shuffled across as quickly as a 22-year old, and the ball raced between mid-on and mid-wicket to the fence. The next ball was blasted through cover, but the fielder got his fingertips to the ball saving a couple of runs.
Misbah-ul-Haq brought on Shahid Afridi. There were a few singles in his first over, when Tendulkar ran virtually as fast as Kohli, who was barely a year old when Tendulkar had made his international debut; and then, as Afridi pitched one up, Tendulkar tried to play inside-out, and we had our hearts in our mouths as the ball took the outside edge and raced to the third-man boundary.
Tendulkar did not look pleased with the lapse. After a few singles, Hafeez made the cardinal mistake of tossing one up in the ‘slot’. Memories of 1998 came back when Tendulkar went down on one knee, and ball disappeared over mid-wicket for his fourth boundary of the innings. He was matching Kohli stroke to stroke, and was on 43 from 36 balls, whereas Kohli was on 38 from 46.
Misbah, clearly helpless at the flurry of runs, brought on Wahab Riaz, hero of the 2011 World Cup semi-final. Kohli greeted him with a boundary. And when he took a single, Riaz made the same cardinal sin that Cheema had a few overs earlier — he dared to pitch one marginally short, just outside the off-stump. The ball did not bounce as Cheema’s, so the upper-cut was replaced by a delicate late cut; Gul did not have a chance to reach it with his clumsy efforts.
In Riaz’s next over, Tendulkar square-drove past point to get a single that brought him — guess what? Yet. Another. Fifty. This was not a hundred — yet — so the helmet did not come off: there was only a customary acknowledgement of the cheer with a simple raise of the bat. He took a fresh guard, prepare to continue. Little did we know that he took guard for the last time in ODI cricket.
And then, just when Kohli began to open up, Saeed Ajmal bowled a doosra to Tendulkar. He misread it, playing for the off-break. The ball took the outside edge and Younis Khan completed the rest at first slip. The ball was thrown in the air, the fielders circled around the bowler and the fielder, the captain smiled, and Mirpur immersed itself in a claustrophobic silence at the catastrophe.
And then, after the moment — or hour, for indeed it felt like an hour — Mirpur stood up in unison to bid goodbye to their hero. The ovation was deafening. The Little Master walked out of a cricket field in coloured attire for one final time — but they weren’t aware of that. Nobody was. Not even us. Not even Tendulkar — probably.
I still wonder how they would have reacted, had they known the enormity of the situation. Or how I would have reacted.
And I still wonder how I will watch cricket in colour again.
Oh, and before I finish this article, I guess I should mention that Kohli went on to score a 148-ball 183 with 22 fours and a six, and India cantered to victory in the 48th over. Not that I care.
Brief scores:
Pakistan 329 for 6 in 50 overs (Nasir Jamshed 112, Mohammad Hafeez 105, Younis Khan 52) lost to India 330 for 4 in 47.5 overs (Virat Kohli 183, Rohit Sharma 68, Sachin Tendulkar 52) by 6 wickets with 13 balls to spare.
Man of the Match: Virat Kohli.
(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ovshake and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)
