And that's why HE is the God

I have here tried to put my opinion on one of the most discussed topics in cricket and the points that I am going to put may differ a lot from person to person. So it’s all up to people to either accept it or they can have their own reasons to oppose it. But both the responses are heartily welcome.

So let’s start with a point which I think almost every Indian agrees to. And that’s “Cricket is a religion in India”. Cricket has been given the place in India that a sport hardly gets and people love this game like anything. During the course of time many legends had played for the country and many will become legend in future too. But in between, there has been one player who is more than just a legend. He is immortal for many and called “THE GOD” of cricket. Yes, you all guessed right, he is Sachin Tendulkar. I know this is the point where many of us doesn’t agree. And there are reasons behind this disagreement, for eg. cricket is bigger than a player and it is a game of eleven players and all players are equally important. I too agree to these points. But friends, let me ask you all a few questions. Why do you see cricket as a religion ad not just a game? Why players’ houses were attacked when India performed badly in World Cup?

If we find a genuine reason or a practical answer for the above questions, we will not find any. But we all know it’s just because we are very emotionally attached to cricket and we have huge expectations from our heroes and we expect a win every time they are playing for our country. And when anyone rises to our expectation and wins it for our country, we call him our hero. We stand out in his praise and give him immense love and fame. And we expect him to repeat the same performance throughout. Some do it a few more times and become legends but here is the difference between those legends and Sachin. He’s has been doing it for not one, not two, not ten, but twenty two years and counting. That too in both forms of cricket (keep the shortest form of cricket aside). When he started playing for India, he was just 16 and many thought he is a few game wonder but soon everyone realized that they were wrong and that kid made almost every ground in the world his home and played every single shot in the cricket book. Fast bowlers tried hard to scare him on bouncy tracks and the spinning greats tried to spin him out but only saw the balls disappearing behind the boundary. People started to see him as their hero as they do with every single match winning performer and naturally the expectations started to grow match by match while he continued to live up to those and guided India to victory in many matches. He was becoming favorite of not only Indians but also many legends couldn’t stop themselves from praising him. Slowly he started to break records and put new milestones for others and soon he became a legend.

Many former players had reached close to this status. But the journey of becoming an immortal started when most of the fans started to see him as the only protector. Their only hope resided in Sachin’s innings. Until he was playing, India were winning and if he got out early, India were on back foot. Oppositions only concentrated on getting him out and if they did it early, they thought they were winning the game. He became a one-man army for India and all due to his unprecedented brilliance. In between he got injuries, but still these couldn’t stop him. He came back stronger every time he was out due to injury. It was a human body but that stamina to fight from it was just out of this world. Such was the effect of Sachin Tendulkar. No other player in the world did this before or after him till now. His childlike enthusiasm for this game, his devotion to cricket made him go to the other level where only he can compete with himself. Records and stats are known to everyone and I haven’t taken them into account. I have only analyzed his journey and tried to state the difference between his and other legends’ journeys.

I don’t say that other players are not like him. They also play like him or may be better than him at times but it’s just that he is not like others. He has his own standards and people who loved him still love him and will always love him. There is something about him, something more than others which makes people praise him from within. Even his failures don’t stop them to do so.

It’s very simple if we see the whole thing like this – When we are in trouble, we want to win, we want to get away from the defeat, we expect our god to help us get through and that’s exactly what people did while he was on song. Every player had got what they deserved and will continue to get in future too. But there are none more deserving of such praise, than Sachin Tendulkar.

And that’s why if cricket is a religion, he is the GOD!