Teamsiliconvalley - Sports Blog

Bal Thackrey and his Sainiks seem to have gone crazy. In the first round they were thrashed, not by Sachin’s bat but by the million admirers of his willow and those who do not like to Sachin to be lost from the center stage of a national icon to the green-room of Marathi politics. And now these guys have come up with another salvo.

The first thing I feel about Sachin is that he is a super-human.

Not because of his sublime cover-drives but because of the person he is. I remember long before Sachin became a night-mare of champion bowlers, in his first World Cup in 1992 he was referred to in the newspapers as the main-stay of the Indian batting line up. Starting from those days the way Sachin has managed expectations and pressure is an achievement in itself.

Many people get freaked out in their work when the work pressure comes to their neck level. Just think of that little master.

What tremendous pressure he has handled and with pure elegance. And that makes him a true champion.

A number of questions had been asked about Sachin in all these 20 years.

About his Captaincy, about his vulnerability to a particular South African fast bowler, about his zeal for personal records, about his inability to single-handedly guide a team to victory.

But none of those questions asked were as demeaning as that asked by Bal Thackrey.

Perhaps nobody had ever taken note of the fact that he is a Marathi. No one in Eden Gardens thought of that fact when his thousand fans halted the test match against Pakistan because of the unfair way he was run out.

Bal Thackrey must understand that Marathi identity is not large and spacious enough to engulf Sachin. Sachin Tendulkar has grown out of Maharashtra and the Marathi identity.

In a recent article by some Shiv Sena MP, Sunil Gavaskar has been projected as more a Marathi than Sachin as he had forced the selection of two Mumbai players to the Indian squad when he was captain and both of them failed in their single appearance. This MP should understand that this is particularly demeaning to the status of Gavaskar. And Gavaskar himself is sure to feel quite embarrassed as an old memory is refreshed.

To go further the Shiv Sena MP has compared Sachin with Saurav and has concluded that Saurav is a better Bengali than Sachin is a Marathi.

I all those year we saw Sachin and Saurav play together we did compare Sachin and Saurav.

We asked who is a better player Sachin or Saurav? Who is a better captain, Sachin or Saurav?

But never had we asked as demeaning a question as asked by our respected MP.Calling Saurav a Bengali first is like bringing him down from the stage of a national icon.

In our school and college days we knew of the three pillars of Indian batting Sachin-Saurav-Dravid. Few cared from which state they came from.

Shiv Sena might have been thrown to the side lines by Raj Thackrey’s Marathi rhetoric and thus is trying every possible move to gain a few political points.

But they have a wrong subject. Few would have cared / objected if the Sachin’s name is replaced with any of the big names of Bollywood.

And as a Congress minister has highlighted an important fact that both these guys came to Bombay as migrants.And also, Cricket bosses can surely play safe.