marc71178 said:
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.