What people would say!!!

Yesterday India lost badly to South Africa. As soon as India lost, near to it, I thought of what people would say about Sachin Tendulkar.

This was 13th time when Sachin scored a century and India lost! Out of his 48 centuries, 35 times India have won. But people would not remember those 35 instances, they would remember only other 13! I cannot disagree to anyone in this regard. This is human tendency to look at the negatives with magnifying glass. If one has ever heard of Roberto Baggio of Italy, they must have heard him in regards of the penalty that he missed. It was the FIFA World Cup Final in 1994, when the Champion was decided by penalty shoot out and Roberto Baggio missed his penalty. Italy lost the final to Brazil. People don't remember that Italy reached Final because of the better performance by Baggio in earlier games. He is one of the best strikers Italy has ever produced. But he would be remembered for the penalty that he missed!

Similarly, no matter how well Sachin plays in India win, people would remember the ones that we lost when he played well!

Then there are some people who would argue that Sachin plays for himself. I cannot deny that as well. He plays for himself. Look at yesterday's match. He scored his 48th century and got out. How rude is that! How can you get out when the team needs you? How can you score a century when other players have decided to get out in single figure? This is not what we call 'team spirit'. If others are not performing, you should not perform as well. How dare he go against it? I ask how many times team India has got scores less than Sachin scored? I don't think it has ever happened that Sachin scored 100 and India got all out for 99. If he plays for himself, then this should happen! How many would agree that he practices more than any other player before every series? These other players include Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvi and you can say every other cricketer across the world. Why does he do that? Simply because he plays for himself. If he practices, he plays well. If he plays well, he would be playing only for himself! Look at the rest of the side, they don't practice, they don't play well and no one accuses them! "na rahega baans, na bajegi baansuri", if you don't play good at all, people would never get chance to say that you play for yourself. Because when it comes to playing of the nation, you don't have to play well. Only when it is for yourself, you play well.

Look at some examples: 

India was chasing 350 against Australia and Sachin scored 175. What a pity! The next top score was Suresh Raina 54. Sachin played well, but played for himself!

Sachin scored 200 against SA last year, what a shame it is for India! How could he score a double hundred in 50-over match?? He played for himself only!
He scored 98 against Pakistan in the WC 2003. He broke the morale of Shoaib Akhtar. But how could he do that? That was so irresponsible. He took his personal revenge against Akhtar, did not play for the nation.

His twin centuries in Sharjah against Australia in 1998 were the most outrageous display of personal fame and glory and not played in the right team spirit. When the whole team had decided to lose the match, why did he win the games of India? He did not play for team, he wanted to play for himself only.

He has scored 9 centuries in 50-over games against Australia, no one has scored as many against them. Again, it is sheer display of attitude. If all the countries of the world fall to the Aussie bowling, how dare he stand up and score hundreds after hundreds against them?? Very much selfish!

I can quote hundreds of other examples of his selfish display of batting. I leave it for the readers to do the follow up. 

Very very very bad on Sachin's part. He should not play for himself. He should respect the team's emotions and start performing badly. Then every one would say he is playing for the team, because all those who play for the team, play poor and irresponsible cricket!