Sachin is the greatest

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">var server = '203.197.64.235'; var sitepage = "www.timesofindia.com/india/index.html"; var position ="Bottom1"; if (! 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Had the doctors diagnosed that his painful elbow would keep him out of the game for 12-18 months? Assured that this was not the case, one begins to debate the legitimacy of the debate. <br /><br />This year Sachin is amongst the leading Indian run-getters - in Tests and one-dayers. Only Dravid, who is currently in a purple patch that defines him as the best batsman in the world, scores in excess in this combo. <br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />Look around the domestic circuit for a replacement for Sachin and you could be searching for a few more seasons at least. There is no player with his class, none with his experience. <br /><br />There has been scepticism recently about his ability to win a match on his own, but this ignores those he has won. The hurly burly of modern cricket, as former ''England A'' captain Mark Nicholas pointed out last week, often blurs the issue. <br /><br />But some facts are hard to hide: for instance, Sachin''s near 10,000 Test and 13,000-plus one-day runs, 33 Test and 37 one-day hundreds. But we expect more. <br /><br />We want him to make the most runs in the fastest time, score the most hundreds, win and save matches - and never change from the player he was as a 20-year-old. How fair is that? <br /><br />Sports performances do not follow a linear pattern. If a batsman scores 200 one day, it does not follow that he should score 210 the next. That kind of expectation betrays a lack of understanding not only of the vicissitudes of sport, but also life. <br /><br />The argument that Sachin is not the batsman he was is based on this fundamental illogic which tries to fit sporting excellence outside the sphere of the human condition. But a polemical refutation of this absurdity is unnecessary; mere cricket history should suffice. <br /><br />For instance, Don Bradman made 974 runs in his second series in 1930, including 309 runs once in a single day, a feat he was never to repeat. But that didn''t diminish his status as the greatest batsman the world has known. <br /><br />In the Bodyline series, his average dropped to 56-something and England won the Ashes, but he was not thought fit for retirement. <br /><br />If Bradman is an anomaly, there are other examples. Sunil Gavaskar scored 774 runs in his first series, and Viv Richards made 829 runs against England in 1976. <br /><br />Neither of these two maestros equalled their early achievements. So? There are countless other examples from other sports but that would be labouring the point. <br /><br />The hallmark of Sachin''s greatness has been his high level of consistency, which remains. If anything he must, as Viv Richards says, start enjoying his cricket again. He might if people would let him be. <br /><br /></div> </div>