In this age of teenage beepers, one finds it not so amusing to reminisce Sachin Tendulkar’s supreme genius, even before he had transformed himself into a bludgeon of a batsman that wielded the willow like a mediaeval swordsman. This isn’t all. There was more to Tendulkar’s peerless capabilities than what met the description of aptitude. First of all, let’s burrow into the precincts of a parallel allegory—one that is part of modern women’s tennis. Of a game that is played like cricket: between your two ears. Or, better still, a cricketing story from another time. More of this later.
Tendulkar’s brilliant capabilities are as much a part of sport folklore as the dazzling exploits of the youthful brigade once led by a champion performer—the racquet game’s most charming Swiss Miss, Martina Hingis. It’s a simile like no other—one that was contemporary tennis’s own benchmark, a veritable landmark in our journey through time. It’s a tale that you’d, perforce, have also often thought of. Of similarity as a case of narrative, in tune with the times we live in—of a world of open boundaries, or high-tech imagery. But, wait a minute. You’d be in for a surprise.
Flashback: Walter Reginald Hammond (June 19, 1903-July 1, 1965), a batsman of rare stock, was just 19 years and 324 days, when he notched up his maiden first-class hundred, in the English County Championship, the bedrock of the game’s school of learning, in 1923. It was, indeed, Hammond’s launch-pad essay, the first among the 167 centuries he was destined to record in his glorious career. It was stuff that dreams are made of, and fulfilled. It’s also something that was not really, or easily, accorded to youthful prospects in his epoch. Because, young and aspiring cricketers were asked to hone, mould, synthesise their talent and ability for ‘baptism’ at the right time—one, which never came too early to most? You bet.
Hammond was something special—a genuine article. He questioned customary thoughtfulness, inside out. Not because he was a batsman in a league of his own, but because he was a player that comes but rarely in history. He could have just walked into any Test, or one-day side, in any era, without ado.
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