Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - The GOD of Cricket

Recently, I saw one of the best knocks from Sachin against Australia (175) at Hydrabad, in which India sadly ended up on the loosing side. Immediately, few critics people started pointing fingers at Sachin that he couldn't finish the game. It has been a long standing debate going on in the cricketing world.

So, today, I decided to collect some statistics about Sachin and show it to people who claim that his centruries do not result in win for india. Its been a long time since I wanted to do this,but never got a chance. This analysis would be done by many many people before, but I wanted to do it for my satisfaction.

So here it goes.

ODIS

Sachin has scored 45 centuries as of 11/7/2009.

Total Win Loss n/a

45 32 12 1

WIN Percentage 72%

LOSS Percentage 28%

Out of 32 Victories (in which Sachin made centuries)

19 Centruries were in 1st innings

13 were in 2nd innings

Percentage of 1st innings centruries in which India won - 59%

Percentage of 2nd innings centruries in which India won - 41%

By looking at the numbers above, We clearly see that India has won 72% of the time when Sachin hit the century. Is this not a big percentage of WIN?? We can't expect 100% win ratio, can we ?? Sachin is not a 'Super-Human' and to add to this, this is over a period of 16 years (Sachin hit his first century in 1994). 16 years is a long long period and to be consistent for such a long time, it required passion and commitment for the game.

There are many people who say that Sachin is not a good finisher. And there are better finishers to the game like S Waugh, Bevan and Rahul Dravid. Yesterday, I had this conversation with my friends and Nauman put forward a very good point i.

Nauman: You cant compare apples vs oranges ... ur Bevan and S.Waugh came in to win with 100 needed off 85 balls ... Sachin came in with 350 needed off 300 balls,and I hardly recall Hayden/Gilchrist ever playing 45 overs and scoring 150+ to win games ...ocassionally yes, consistently no same with Jaysuria, same with Saeed Anwar. The only thing that pollutes your mind is that all great openers get out when 100 is needed to win off 80 balls and hand it to the Bevan and Hussey to finish it Sachin just unfortunately scores that extra 50 runs. I think watever games he has one single-handedly were just miracles, the ones where he fell short just proves he is not super-human ... but other humans around him need to contribute.

Another article that correctly describes the "Greatness" of Sachin

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/63439/The%20legend%20of%20Sachin.html?page=0

The above article describes the 'longevity' is the most important virtue for the greatness. Excerpt from article:

" That longevity assumes all the qualities that everyone else finds dear. If you are good enough to play at the highest level for 20 years you must possess virtually every quality in a sportsman."

Coming back to the winning percentage and loss percentage, the winning percentage for the matches in which Sachin scored century in 1st innings vs 2nd innings is 59% vs 41% which is not bad at all considering the amount of cricket he has played.

TEST MATCHES

Total Win Loss Draaw

42 16 9 17

WIN Percentage 38%

LOSS Percentage 21%

DRAW Percentage 41%

If you take out the number of draws from the above numbers,

then

WIN Percentage 64%

LOSS Percentage 36%

64% for Winning- is that a bad number?? What else can we ask for ??

Out of 16 Victories (in which Sachin made centuries)

13 Centruries were in 1st innings

3 were in 2nd innings

Percentage of 1st innings centruries in which India won - 81%

Percentage of 2nd innings centruries in which India won - 19%

Ok - critics may say that 19% is a very small percentage (the cases where Sachin hit centuries in the second innings of the Test Match) and they may say that his centuries in 1st innings may not have come under pressure.

I tried to dig a bit more in to the centuries that he hit in the first innings

165 India vs England - 1993 - India batted first

142 India vs Srilanka - 1994 - India batted first

122 India vs Zimbabwe - 2000 - India batted second and needed only 190 runs (out of which Sachin scored 39)

126 India vs Australia - 2001 - India needed only 155

176 India vs Zimbabwe - 2002 - India won by an innings

117 India vs West Indies - 2002 - India batted first

193 India vs England - 2002 - India batted first and won by an innings

194 India vs Pakistan - 2004 - India batted first and won by an innings

248 India vs Bangladesh - 2004 - India batted second and won by an innings

109 India vs Srilanka - 2005 - India batting second

122 India vs Bangladesh - 2007 - India batted first and won bt an innings

109 India vs Australia - 2008 - India batted first

160 India vs New zealand - 2009 - India batted second and won by an innings

So for the 13 occasions, when Sachin hit the century in the first innings, India won 6 of those test matches by an innings. This ratio is 46%.

This shows this man's dominance over the opponent's team when he scores big runs.

There is a section of people who blame Sachin for not scoring runs when we are chasing in the second innings when India looses. When a team has lost a game, you can't blame an individual for not scoring runs. Entire team is to blame for the loss.

I can go on and on about this, but people need to understand the contribution this great person has given to cricket and appreciate his hard work that he puts in for our country. He takes the burden of expectations of 1 billion people with so ease and modesty. I haven't seen any other sportsman who is so talented and so down to earth. (Is Roger Ferdrer this down to earth?? I don't think so, Can you think of any other sportsman? I can't)

Sachin was awarded the MoM in the match @ Hydrabad. When he came to take the award, I could feel the agony, pain in his eyes. While talking to Arunlal, he almost had tears in his eyes. I have never seen Sachin in so much pain before. The only time that comes to my mind is, 1999 world cup when his father had passed away. At that time, he was in deep pain.

So where does he go from here?

One of the email that I got from my best friend (Nirad) whom I consider as the biggest fan of Sachin ..

"When will Fortune stop being tantalisingly cruel

to Indians in general and Sachin in particular?

i did believe the tide had finally turned in our favour

with the Sydney final (117*) & the Chennai chase (103*)

but the dream was shattered again. And paradoxically

by the very shot which has remained his virtual lifeline"

I am hoping that there is still something more in store for him and he has saved the BEST for the LAST!

I'll end the blog with my favorite metaphor about Sachin:

"Commit all your crimes while Sachin is batting. Even the GOD is busy watching him bat"

Addendum

In the first blog, I mentioned that I want to write the blog since I wanted to put down my thoughts on piece of paper/blog!

After that, I wrote a couple of blogs. It seems that there is more to just putting thoughts on paper by writing blog. By writing blog, I want to share interesting things that occur in my day to day life with my friends/family. I also want to record some of the most interesting/memorable events that happen in my life. After some time, its too difficult to remember all these things. So why not, write it in the blog ! This way, I'll be able to look back and enjoy these memorable moments in my life!

Many times, one does not get time to be in contact with each and every friend/family via telephone. But in this 'Internet' world, we can be in contact via so many mediums. The Social Networking is the latest example of how we can connect with each other. Via Orkut, I have been able to get in touch with my old buddies whom I was not in touch since last 10 years. :))
Again, reiterating my point of the blog writing, this can be another medium by which your friends/family can be in your touch.

Adios..

A R Blog

Came across this blog of A R Rahman...Good collection of information about the legend "Alla Rakha Rahman"

People who are big fans of A R should definitely check this site:

http://rahmaniac.wordpress.com/

"Encounter with word GPS"

One interesting thing happened at Mini Golf Place that I went near Glen State Park. There was an old lady who was sitting at the reception whom we met. She was between the age of 60-70..

We were talking to her and in the conversation, we mentioned something about GPS. And she was like, " hummmmm :-) You have a GPS! "

She was so surprised to hear about the GPS :)

So what does this mean to me??

There are people in the world who are away from this technological advancements and they are happy in their own world. They are satisfied with whatever they are doing. I admire these people very much. Sometimes I even envy these people that they are so happy and satisfied !

These people are on the opposite end of the line. On one side, its people like us who thrive on technological advancements and other end is lady like the one I encountered!!

Such is the life!

UnPlanned Trip!

Sometimes, I want to do trips without planning. I have done so many road trips in US (and most of them planned), these days I feel like just going to a new place and not plan anything and explore the place.

So this time for Labor Day long weekend, till Friday night - I did not plan anything. I just said to myself "not to plan". People who know me, would say that this is totally opposite to my nature where I plan most of the things so meticulously.

So what did I do? Only thing that I had done till Friday night was to make sure that I have a car rental which is what I need if I have to go any where outside and second thing was to pick a place!!

One of my colleague had gone to this place "Glen State Park" before couple of weeks and he said that its really beautiful. So as per his suggestion, I had decided on this place on Friday.

That's it....On Saturday, we just put the address of one hotel in the GPS and there we go! We started our journey without knowing what to do at our destination. Isn't that a different feeling?
Almost all of the time, you know what you are going to do or you somewhat know what to do at your destination when you are going on a trip. Believe me, you are so much free on your mind when you have no thoughts running in your mind of "things to do". This is a very nice feeling to have.

We got a room in one of the hotels in a small town of "Geneva". Geneva was nice little town with a big "Seneca Lake". Next day, we started our drive towards actual State Park. After reaching there, we explored the small town of "Watkins Glen" and gathered some information from the visitor's center about the activities to do. Later we visited the state park. It was a small hike of 1.5 miles. There was a beautiful gorge in the park with lots of small water falls.

In the evening, we headed to another small town where we played "Mini Golf". This is a fun sport. I enjoyed it even more since the place was in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing in the 10-20 miles radius of this place. It was a small ice cream parlor and the mini golf !! What an amazing feeling!

After that we had dinner at another small town (Corning) at "Thali of India". The girl who was serving us was very innocent and cute. :-)

After that we headed back home!!

All in all "UnPlanned Trip" turned out very nice!

First Blog!

Its been a long time since I have been thinking of writing a blog. I tried to take some time out but never got the time to write anything. It happens in many things, that you want to do something, but you never take time out for that. Its simply because you donot prioritize things correctly.

You always have "time". Many people say that "24 hours is too less to do everything". I have myself made such a statement so many times. To an extent, this fact is true. But I still think that, there is always room for doing things if you successfully prioritize them.

So what makes me think that I should write a blog??

Mind is such a constructive piece that it keeps on chewing ideas continuously. You need to sometimes put these thoughts on paper/somewhere else. Sometimes, putting these ideas on paper can lead to new interesting things/solutions. So, writing a blog is one way of achieving this.

This was my first short and simple post. I ll try to post some more soon!