Did you see God bat?

India’s tour to Ireland and England is just into its second stage – England. A highlight at this stage of the section of the tour that has passed is certainly Mr.Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

Watching a batsman play the hook gives the viewer a certain amount of confidence in the batsman’s form, his confidence, and the situation of his game at that point in time. The hook – at least in the modern day - signifies confidence. In the early days, batsmen without helmets would hook without much ado. But, in more recent times, the hook has been used less often. This is primarily because of the limitation on the number of bouncers a bowler can bowl in an over. This has reduced the opportunity for the batsman to play the hook. Therefore, it is not their fault that the hook has not been used much of late. The batsmen are now more comfortable leaving hookable balls alone – after all how many can he bowl there?

Often bowlers attack batsmen with repetitive short deliveries around the chest. The Proteas are good at doing this. They also have bowlers with more than formidable pace to keep the bounce high (Nel and Ntini.) It is this duet that decided to attack a little guy from India - who’s been playing international cricket for eighteen years - with short balls.

Sachin has not been in good form lately. There has been a lot of criticism regarding his performance. The South Africans thought a few short balls would see him back in the pavilion.

At this point, it is crucial to analyse as to why Sachin was not in good form. The Sachin we saw in the 90s had in him an aggressive competitive little kid. Sachin at one point seemed to have completely neglected this kid and tried to bat without him. He got runs for sometime. But the runs were of really no use. He was just piling on the runs, but would still get out to balls which, when the little kid dominated would be ineffective.

This kid inside him is very important. Without his natural game, he is just not capable of tailoring an innings of quality. People may argue, that even against the South Africans, he played as the situation demanded. That may be true, but is an invalid point. Playing as the situation demands does not mean losing one’s natural game. It is just curbing the natural game for a short period of time.

We come back to the hook. It was his natural game that came in when he decided to hook Nel and Ntini. Had he played as he has for a few years recently, he would have been bogged down by the short deliveries and the South Africans would have been successful. But Tendu decided to take the attack to the bowlers. He played near perfection. He got out in the 90s due to lapses of concentration. But, the sublime strokeplay, inspirational determination and dedication set a few of us in a daze. This is probably Tendulkar reminding the world that he still knows cricket.

It is this dominating nature – and the visually pleasing strokeplay – of Tendulkar that has provoked some of my classmates - even those not so interested in cricket - to ask me whether I saw God bat after the games against South Africa and England Lions.-BS

My apologies for all that time without updates. As I said, I was caught in Indian education.