Probable heirs to Sachin Tendulkar's throne

If you are chasing the numbers of Sachin Tendulkar, you are more or less running a lost race. A lot of good logic fails when you take a look at the statistics that the Little Master has amassed over the years. Records are made to be broken: this sporting adage hardly applies when you are up against a hundred international cricket hundreds. Sachin has scored nearly 16,000 runs in almost 200 Test matches at an average of just below 54, including 51 hundreds. The figures get better in the limited overs version of the game – almost 18,500 runs in just over 460 matches at an average of just below 45.00. These numbers suggest the success with which Tendulkar took the stage at a time when runs did not come so easily; when totals above 300 in ODIs were a rarity.

These numbers suggest the longevity of a cricketing life. The cricket itself that spans over two decades, and the immortal afterlife. To be able to achieve that involves a lot more than skill and technique. It involves early attainment of skill and maturity, a strict fitness routine that ensures the longevity, improving through the course of your career, and getting runs in every part of the world against every bowling attack of the world. It involves playing with over three generations of cricketers against the best bowlers of the world: Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saqlain Mushtaq, Courtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Glenn Mcgrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Allan Donald, Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn and more. It is an achievement that is unique and simply impossible to replicate.

Yet, this is the ambitious, destined to fail, attempt of the article. To find in the new breed of cricketers someone who has exhibited the talent, the success and the hunger to come close to, if not match, the greatest batsman of our generation. Here is a list of players that come to mind:

4. Alastair Cook

Sachin Tendulkar was a 16-year-old when he made his debut, while Alastair Cook was 22, and that’s about 5-6 years that he lost there. It’s not an excuse for his stats, but an evidence of the immense talent that Sachin had at such a young age that made him destiny’s child. Cook does not have the natural flair or the range of Tendulkar’s batting. He’s predominantly a Test batsman which means he’s only competing with half of what Sachin is today, but even then he falls quite short.

He averages just below 50 with almost 7500 Test runs in just over 90 Test matches. However, that is not to undermine the achievement of the elegant left-handed opener. He does have something that makes a fair comparison to Sachin. He is extremely consistent, opens the batting and shares Tendulkar’s grace on and off the pitch.

Both the players are temperamentally good and never express their emotions on the field. Kevin Pietersen recently said that Cook could take on Sachin’s record; and while that seems realistically impossible, he definitely deserves to be on this list.