Next Player To Score 10,000 Runs

[Eclipse]

one thing about that though is though Lara hasn't changed his game.. tendulkar has.

 

[SJS]

one thing about that though is though Lara hasn't changed his game.. tendulkar has.

Yes he has. Its clear that he is finding it difficult to drive on the off side.

This is not new. He came out of his terrible run in Australia by scoring a big double hundred without a single drive to covers !! Clearly he has a problem with his leading arm.

Add that to his now known ailment of the left elbow and one can assume that this has been bothering him and has forced a change in his batting the way our gait changes if we have the slightest of niggle in our lower body.

It is sad but I think Sachin has been badly hurt by his injury and attending it with finality (assuming an operation is final in the sense that he has addressed it with intrusive surgery) after more than two years.

One cant say with certainity that he would have fared better if he had had his operation earlier but he may, just may, have hurt his chances of recovery much more by playing those two years plus while carrying the injury.

 

[Jono]

Whilst you are no doubt right SJS, exactly how many matches has Sachin played from 2002 to present compared to Lara?

As I pointed out earlier, for some idiotic reason India only played 5 test matches in 2003, and Sachin missed some matches in 2004 and 2005 with injury. No doubt he's not been anywhere near as consistent and devastating as he was pre-2002, but I think your stats may be a bit misleading. Mind you, the overall point is correct. Lara has been brilliant in the past years where as Sachin hasn't.

 

[marc71178]

18 games vs 31.

 

[SJS]

Whilst you are no doubt right SJS, exactly how many matches has Sachin played from 2002 to present compared to Lara?

As I pointed out earlier, for some idiotic reason India only played 5 test matches in 2003, and Sachin missed some matches in 2004 and 2005 with injury. No doubt he's not been anywhere near as consistent and devastating as he was pre-2002, but I think your stats may be a bit misleading. Mind you, the overall point is correct. Lara has been brilliant in the past years where as Sachin hasn't.

Oh sure, Sachin has played fewer games particularly in 2003 and 2005 due to injury. The figures are given by Marc. This does explain why he has scored fwer runs overall as compared to Lara but it doesnt explain the rate of scoring 50 plus and 100 plus innings.

Period ..............Innings per century
......................Sachin...........Lara
1997-2002...........2..................4.9
2003-2005...........6..................2.4

Sachin would have had to score more than six centuries(in the last 3 years) against his three to have the same proportion as the earlier period.

Lara on the other hand has been scoring his centuries at more than TWICE the rate of the earlier period.

The cumulative effect is HUGE !!!

Even with the same number of matches played, the century score between Sachin and Lara would have been 34+/23+ as against the 34/31 it is today.

 

[magsi23]

Rana Naved, Ian Bell and Collingwood

on a serious note, i think Inzy will definetly score 10,000 plus if he carries on they way he has been for past 2 years or so.

 

[magsi23]

I'm going for Kallis as the next to 10,000. The man is a machine.

Evil prediction: not only will Tendulkar never become leading Test run scorer, he will not even score enough runs to beat Lara's current tally. If you think this puts me in the "Tendulkar's past it" camp, you're absolutely correct.

Well depends how many matches he plays against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh

 

[ClownSymonds]

Rana Naved, Ian Bell and Collingwood

on a serious note, i think Inzy will definetly score 10,000 plus if he carries on they way he has been for past 2 years or so.

Inzi is already almost 36, and will probably retire quite soon. He's just over 8,000 now, so he'll really have to keep up his great form. Then again, maybe he'll play until well past the World Cup, in which case he'll get to 10,000 easily. Age shouldn't be too much of a factor with him, anyway, but players seem to go no matter what at 38 to 40 max.

 

[ryan563]

that's true i think inzy will get about 9,000 then retire

 

[nightprowler10]

Inzi will only make it past 10,000 runs if he plays past the World Cup, something I don't see happening. You can already see that his quicker running between the wicket takes a toll on him (I know he's always been bad, but now the way I've seen him huff and puff after a run is worry some). He's had back problems for a while now, that'll certainly have a negative effect on him in the near future.

Pakistan have a minimum of 15 test matches scheduled between now and the World Cup. If Inzi keeps up his average and scores 100 runs per match, he'll pass 9500 by the WC, that is not taking into account any injuries or slumps.

IMO, Dravid will be the next one to pass 10,000 runs. I've never heard the term 'the wall' being used more appropriately in any sport.

 

[Pratters]

Whatever his devotees may feel (Pratyush and my younger son included) this is very worrisome indeed. I hope he will get back not just for his own sake, not just for his fans but for the game at large for another four years of Sachin at a reasonable level for his age wil be something posterity will cherish.

Its not for the race that I write this. Thats immaterial as far as I am concerned. I have used the careers of the two just to illustrate, graphically, whats ben happening to Sachin which cant be explained away by emotional responses as displayed by my good friend Pratyush's signature. [

I am out of station but have to react to this despite the net conneciton here in Puri being pathetic.

Tendulkar has had an inconsistent phase but that doesnt mean much in my opinion - many players have had more inconsitent phases than this.

What is more important for me is that he is scoring big. Couple it with consistency which we know of Tendulkar over his career and it the possibility of a superb phase in Tendulkar's career.

This is a major reason I believe Tendulkar is not past his best. Firstly thank you for comparing me lovingly to your son and calling me your friend. I have high regards for you - some thing you must be aware of I am sure. Secondly it is not an emotional response. I believe it is just a phase.

 

[marc71178]

But how long does the poor run have to go on before it becomes a cause for concern?

 

[SJS]

. I believe it is just a phase.

I honestly hope so Pratyush for I am as emotionally involved in Sachins success as anyone else. But it is increasingly looking like something more than just a law of averages (not your words I know) having caught up with him in a long career.

He is struggling mentally as well. His innings the other day at Chennai was a clear indicator.

Maybe it is my Aquarian tendency of excessive reliance on logic and reasoning to explain a 'natural' phenomeno. And as I have said time and again, I hope I am wrong.

And yes, I am very fond of you. And you DO remind me of my younger son though if I argued with him about Sachin he would lose his manners much faster I wish he was polite like you when it comes to Sachin.

 

[Pratters]

But how long does the poor run have to go on before it becomes a cause for concern?

It is a concern in the sense it hampers a team that a player who has been so consistent in the past is not as consistent. But has he lost it? The big scores means he hasnt as far as I am concerned.

 

[marc71178]

The big scores which have always come against weak attacks or on flat easy scoring wickets?

 

[Fusion]

The big scores which have always come against weak attacks or on flat easy scoring wickets?

Always?

 

[marc71178]

In the time period that is being discussed, yes.

 

[SJS]

The big scores which have always come against weak attacks or on flat easy scoring wickets?

Thats not exactly true. They werent weak attacks but they were scored when everyone else was scoring big too.

They have come with some major qualifications. To start with he scored that big double hundred in Australia WITHOUT A SINGLE DRIVE THRU COVERS OR EXTRA COVER.

It was amazing self-restraint. The fact that with no runs off the front foot on the off side he still scored at over 50 runs per 100 balls in a test match against Australia also showed his class. Inspite of a batting track, I still consider that a great innings because of what was happening to Sachin.

We didnt know then but I am convinced it was his tennis elbow that was causing him problems in cover driving. I have written about it before. He must have changed his grip when it started becoming uncomfortable, just as we change our gait even with a shoe that pinches, and that made his cover driving faulty. I suspect he did not realise this that his grip had changed slightly though he did notice that he was getting out cover driving.

It started a period of three big scores reading (including that innings) 241 not out (out of 705-7 decl), 61 not out (out of 211 for 2 decl) and 194 not out (out of 675 for 5 decl).

I wrote then and I stand by the claim that the declaration at 194 caused him great deal of mental anguish. The renowned Tendulkar restraint was breached and he spoke about it to the media. It didnt last and was seen as put behind him (and his captain of the day) but I strongly suspect it affected him mentally.

If Sachin has a fault, and I am sure he has more than one, I suspect the biggest one is that he thinks far too much. He had thought a lot before cutting out his cover drive in that Australian innings and he was totally focussed on making the opposition bowlers pay for that long runless hiatus. This unexpected declaration snapped something inside him and the focus, which was all that was carrying him through, snapped.

It broke the spell and (I suspect and wrote at that time) it snapped something imperceptible in tesm India too.

Coming back to Sachin, he scored a mere 104 runs in the next 9 completed innings of which 3 were in the rest of that Pakistan tour, four against visiting Australians (whom he had murdered on previous tours) and two against visiting South Africans. One can argue that this was not a new bad patch but the continuation of the old one which was interrupted by that restrained innings at Sydney.

He scored a 32 not out in the last innings against SAF and then hammered minnows Bangladesh for another double century. A 379 ball 248 not out. Scored out of a team total of 526 all out. It is important to remember that the score was 393 when Zaheer Khan walked in at number 11 and scored a spectacular 75. Thus while it was definitely against a weak bowling attack, it was one of the few occasions that Sachin stayed and played with the end of the tail.

He wanted to make his rare good day pay. In his career he has rarely stayed till the tail appears, his major drawback when compared with others of his stature.

Against Pakistan in the series that followed he scored 255 runs in five innings with just one score below 40. Surely this cant be added to his bad patch. He averaged 50+ scored almost every time he went in to bat.

And then he decided to go for surgery.

I have wondered whether he should have gone for it when he was in the middle of his bad patch. I still wonder.

His last innings before the surgery was a 16 in 98 deliveries as India were struggling to save the test against Pakistan against Kaneria, Arshad Khan and Afridi who finally got him.

It was batting like we saw in the test at Chennai the other day. I wonder whether his reluctance to use his feet to spinners has to do with the fact that his lofted drives are not that likely to carry the distance (due to the frail elbow). This is all conjecture but there isnt much else one can do except try to figure out why what is happening to Sachin is happening.

He is a great player, yes. He is playing some great shots even now, yes. But he has changed and how ! This is not a bad patch. This is worse. A bad patch will end when you are a player of Sachins caliber and just 32-33 yrs old. But if it is something else, one cant be so sure.

I am not, sad to say. I wish , oh how I wish, I was though.

 

[Pratters]

The big scores which have always come against weak attacks or on flat easy scoring wickets?

Even if that is indeed the case (without going into it) -

Most big scores follow the norm of either of the two you have mentioned (weak/not so strong bowling attacks or flatter wickets).

 

[marc71178]

Not necessarily.

The Tendulkar didn't have to have those criteria.