The world is divided into Sachin fans who do anything to defend him, and Sachin critics, who do anything to criticize him.
At times when statistics are discussed and critics have a field day with quotes like :
"Never performs when India needs him".
"Chokes in big matches".
"Record in India better than record abroad".
"Big scores always in dead matches".
"Low averages or numCenturies against X team".
In an era of Americanized statistifying, there will be a statistic on how many balls it took for Sachin to get from 100 to 138, in matches played in December
when Dave Shepherd was umpiring. A statistic like "all Sachin's double hundreds have been in drawn matches" can be quite damning.
That is why Sachin fans want a Sachin double hundred. (probably more than he wants it, since he doesnt have to defend himself using statistics, unlike his
fans).
So if India go on to win this match, I would have liked a watch him get those 6 runs. Sure it doesnt matter to him, but I guess it matters to me. We play
testmatches in Pak every 10-15 years. Probably 2-3 times in a long career. Long after those who actually watched the match are dead, it is only cold numbers
which will speak.
And dont get me wrong here, because I completely agree with the thing that its Dravid's decision. God knows, he has been stranded in the 90s enough number of
times when Ganguly has declared. And there's no end to this milestone business.But given the circs of the match, I think we could have afforded to delay
declaration by 2 overs. But like Sachin said, once the decision is taken, thats it.
The worst fallout of this is that the media (and some hyper Sachin fans) are going to get after Dravid's blood. And he might get bitter by that experience.
Which is sad, since he's a fine cricketer and gentleman. Hope he is unaffected by what follows.
P.S. here is Razzaq's reaction after Akash took a stunner to get him.....awesome....another for the archives!!!!!
Balls
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