Badshah O Badshah!!

“Kurban Badshahkhan” !! Danny Denzongppa chanted these words many times in Amitabh Bachchan’s one of the most disastrous movies, “Khuda Gawah”. Probably people around India must have said the same in India’s disastrous yet close game at Hyderabad the other night. Just like Amitabh Bachchan who gave stand out performance even in that flop movie, the Badshah, in picture, Tendulkar also stood out in this game.

175 is what he got in that match, it will remain in every Indian’s mind fore ever like the other 175 made by another legend. Though this 175 was in loosing cause but it was not less spectacular then the 175 made some 26 years back, perhaps this 175 is more joyful since has electronic evidence.

There are plenty of stories in India about Tendulkar. One is that he plays for himself and when he was given out by Asoka de Silva a match before last one, few people questioned his attitude sighting the same reason. For me, once you are at the top of the mountain, you don’t even have option to be selfish, because there is no one to compete you at the top and you want some one for the company. That night his long term opening partner in ODIs, Sourav Ganguly rightly said, “17 000 runs will come any ways and he doesn’t care for it.” It is like that Jaipur Junction will come any ways when you travel from Ahmedabad to New Delhi. It will come faster if you go by Rajdhani and slower if you go by passenger train.

To be frank that 17000 mark looked very small to me against score of 175 that night. He was looking to finish it up, he looked destined to make India win that night, but sadly cricket is a team game and it proved that night. No one stood along with the little master and no one stood even after he departed when India was nearly home..

I will never ever forget that sixes he hit in one Hauritz over. For me it was re visiting Sharjah, when he was murdering Damien Fleming and Michael Kasprowicz. Co incidentally Kasparowicz is part of commentary team of Neo, which is covering this series. It was same old Sachin who was fearless yet cool and calm underneath when he was smashing Kangaroos all over the park.

Not long back, I was advocating for him to play only test matches and leave the ODIs. But since New Zealand series he started to change my mind. If this is the Tendulkar we are watching then I would not like to miss a single ball played by him. Though he is best judge of his fitness and I am sure he will take right decision at right time.

As I am writing this, I came to know that he is just 49 runs to reach 30000 international runs. Now this is awesome. No player in this world can think about this in his wildest of dreams. I wonder will there some one in future even come near to this figure ever?

Till then let’s all cheer him by shouting “Kurbaan Badshah Khan” !!