100th ton... phew...!!! What a dramatic (read melodramatic) event ...
So, the Little Master has proved once again that Gods cannot go wrong...no, at least not in India...
Even if they do so, we are not standing by to acknowledge the straightforward object that they are mere humans and they are bound to have their share of ups and downs.
Ok, I absolutely agree that 100 tons is not a joke..in any format of the game.
It is almost humanly unattainable to score a 100 tons even in para cricket. Agreed..!
But, that also doesn't rob my right to disparage Mr.God, when I have legitimate grounds to do so.
Its ok for him to take one full year to reach from the 99th ton to 100th ton, but its not at all ok for young Manoj Tiwary.
So what if you scored an unbeaten hunderd in the last ODI u played for India,dude ? So what if you regurarly hitting centuries and double centuries in First class?
You have to make way for the God... he has a God Quota in the team...! He never is dropped, He just takes rest in the series he does’nt wanna play. He might well decide to play 2015 and 2019 world cups, and you cannot do a damn thing about it.
An Asia cup Win can wait for the next time.. Scoring the ton'th ton (a 114 from 147 balls against Bangladesh with a S/R of 77) is far more a bigger headline. Poor Pranab Mukherjee’s budget almost went unnoticed in the next day morning daily. (Pranab’s not quite unhappy though, he’s a bit relieved actually that Mr.God stole the limelight and the discussion for the next couple of days will probably involve less of his arse)
And after India being unceremoniously ousted from the tournament, we get a fine first reaction from the master "Virat is a great player, but Don't put pressure on him".
Talking about pressure and match winning abilities, 10 out of Virat's 11 ODI tons has resulted in India's victory. And 7 of them were run chases.
And still, I cannot even think to compare Virat to Mr.God. So even if you have 11 tons already in 85 ODI's, you can never be compared with Mr.God who had just a maiden ton in the same number of matches. You are just going through a fine phase, a learning curve.
You are just a match winner, he's a God,dude... Grow up...!
Ok, enough.. no more cynicism with Mr.God..and no more statistics...coz if the God bhakts starts throwing their share of Stats.. like Matches played, number of international years of cricket, Runs scored I will almost certainly need a cave to hide in Afghanisthan.
Leave Virat, he’s just a kid...you cannot even compare him with Viv,Ricky or Brian. Once a while someone makes the audacity of saying that “Ponting is the most complete batsman I’ve ever seen”, just to supplement with a small disclaimer,” after Tendulkar”, basically to avoid any non-compliance.
Oh yes, you can jolly well compare him with Sir Bradman. Mainly because nobody in our generation, or our father’s have seen him play, and secondly the magic average of “99.96” somewhat gives him the SuperGod quota.
Coming back to what made me spit venom on Mr.God was because of the time I started admiring Dada. Ok, now I know there is a Bong Connection and I you may think I have a 1% extra biasness for him on the lingo ground. But this also conradicts the fact that I prefer the Gujju Dinesh Trivedi to the dickhead Bong Mukul Ray as the rail-minister . Got my point? So leave aside any thought of Bong Bhalobasha.
I have always loved aggression,attitude and fearlessness in the field. That is why I probably admire Ricky Ponting and in fact the Aussie Team a lot. We cannot go on saying Cricket is a Gentleman’s game in this timeframe where T20’s is the reigning format. And the turning point in Indian Cricket came under Dada’s regime.
At a time when world class cricketers like Prabhakar,Mongia,Manjrekar,Azharuddin had successfully gangraped Indian Cricket, Dada came and took the reigns. He got onboard few unheard,unknown faces in his side and basically he made a presentable bowling line up with Zaheer,Harbhajan,Irfan. With Yuvraj and Kaif at point and cover, a decent fielding side was created. Add to it, he had the Wall and Mr.God with him. A dream team –. An aggressive leader, with a fine balance of youngsters and veterans, he turned the “indian Cricket Team” to “Team India”. He somehow broke the myth of “Tigers at backyard, Rabbits overseas.” In the midst of his leadership skills, many tend to overlook the fact that he was the finest batsman in India at that time. Yes, he reached the quickest 6000,7000,8000,9000 runs in ODI, when he was playing at his peak. Yes, quicker than God.. Godspeed, did u say ?
Matchwinner?
18 of Dada’s 22 ODI tons has resulted in India winning the match. (82%).
Lara: 19 ODI Centuries, 16 times West Indies won. (84%),
Jayasuriya: 28 ODI centuries, 24 times Srilanka won. (85%).
And the list is pretty huge, with players like Shewag,Yuvi, Anwar, Astle etc (people having scored sizebale number of centuries) in ODI’s has a better ton-to-win average than Sachin’s meagre 67%.
Anyways, my point is that even I agree that Sachin is the greatest cricketer the world has seen.
But, there were times when Lara was better than him, when Ponting was better than him, when Dada was better than him. And we should accept it.
There are times when one should realize when to hang up their boots and call it a day. What more does he need to acheive?
Highest number of runs in any format of the game – Unbreakable
Longest international career – Unbreakable
Most number of matches – Unbreakable
Most tons – Unbreakable
Most number of MoM and MoS – In the kitty
World Cup win – Done
100 100’s – Acheived.
Once a while, there’s a retortion from him stating “Will stop playing the day I feel 1% less committed to the game”, which basically translates to “It’s my freaking decision when to quit, and you don’t have a rat’s ass say in that, whatsoever”. Even if fans throughout India feel that scoring that century against Bangladesh came with a selfish strike rate.
Sir, Do not become another Kapil Dev, who played and played the fag end of his career, all broken and dry, just for thesake of breaking Hadlee’s record. And moreover, you do not have any other record to break, they are all yours. Now if you have Lara’s 400 in Tests or Shewag’s 219 in ODI,in your mind, just to have all the possible records in the book under your name, then poor Manoj, am sorry... you are in deep trouble.
Dear Mr.God, I have written many unpleasant things about you, without even having a minimum qualification or knowledge in Cricket to do so, but, as a one time huge fan of yours, I have just one advice/request for you . “Retire with grace,Sir... we all love you”
