A modest assessment of his valor against Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram and Mushtaq Ahmed is, “I showed that I can play some shots and generate power for a guy who doesn’t have a big frame and won an ODI spot for himself. have gained.” In what may have been the first Twenty20 match ever played, as rain ruled out the possibility of a full international match and due to the presence of huge crowds, India and Pakistan decided to play an exhibition match of 20 overs per innings. Did.
“Not a bad strike-rate even in today’s T20 era,” he says later, shedding a few ounces of that modesty.
As India prepares to play its 1000th ODI Opposite West Indies Feather Narendra Modi Stadium In Ahmedabad on Sunday, Tendulkar took time to reflect on the evolution of the one-day game.
Surprisingly, he began with expressing sympathy for a tribe he often treated with disdain. Fast bowler.
“In the last 10 years, I have rarely seen reverse swing,” he laments and feels it was because of the introduction of two new balls from each end. The new area restrictions (from 2013) also mean that there is always a space available to go to the top.
“A lot has changed,” he reflects. “We used to play a lot with the red ball and at places in eastern India where games used to start at 8.45 am. The moisture in the pitch helped in seam movement and the SG ball also reversed beautifully. The fast bowlers could plan their wickets. Opening up the batting used to be a different dynamic,” the legend explains.
Tendulkar takes you back to a match against Zimbabwe in 2000 where the team did not shine the ball for seven overs. “Zaheer then came back and bowled Alistair Campbell with reverse swing in the eighth over,” he says, almost yearning for the time to come back.
Tendulkar set his mind in the 1999 World Cup to make his point about reverse swing. Wasim Akram used to bowl with slip in the 47th over. This is unheard of today. ,
He feels that the old ball being dirty and difficult to see is also one of the reasons which has gone away.
“Apart from reverse swing, against someone like Muralitharan, a loose ball posed a different challenge as you struggled to know whether it was an off-spinner or the other,” he said.
In today’s day and era of IPL and T20 cricket, many ODIs in India are struggling for relevance, especially post-Covid, but Tendulkar disagrees.
“A lot of people in today’s generation have not been made aware of how to play the first ODI. Things change. A good strike-rate or economy rate in the 1980s and 1990s may not be that good today. Those numbers change. Has been. ”
When asked to name his best Indian all-time ODI XI, he insisted that he would prefer one of the 463 ODIs that India played at Lord’s on June 25, 1983.
When Tendulkar was asked to recall his five best ODI matches, he is the one to come forward.
“World Cup 2011 final, Sharjah Sandstorm v Australia, Centurion 2003 v Pakistan and two VB series finals in Sydney and Brisbane v Australia,” he shouts.
While Tendulkar, like a true Mumbai batsman, values hundreds, he has a particular fondness for scoring 98 runs in Centurion in the 2003 World Cup vs Pakistan.
“It is an innings that I would love to play again,” he says, “only for the pre-match tension, the build-up and the bowling attack, which I think was the best at the time. ”
That it took 40 years and his brilliance to break the double century barrier in ODIs on February 24, 2010 in Gwalior again sent you a voice note.
“Since this has happened for the first time, it has its own relevance. It happened against a good attack and also against a good opposition.”
And the fact that it has happened seven times shows how easy things have become for the batsmen.
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