Is Sachin Great?

I must confess. I started researching for this blog with a clear bias against Tendulkar. My observation as a cricket buff for the last 20 years has made me believe that Tendulkar somehow plays more for his own records than for his team. Sachin has proved such allegations wrong at various points in his cricketing career. Still, it is but natural for cricket fans like me to feel that Tendulkar somehow falls short of 'greatness' by losing breath just before the finishing line. This discussion has gained currency yet again as Tendulkar got out for 175 yesterday, with India just needing 19 runs to win against Australia. India lost this match.

My feeling has always been that Tendulkar is a master batsman when India bats first, but has always been unsuccessful in winning matches for India while chasing. The true character of a great batsman can be gauged by how often he crosses the finishing line while chasing, when the pressure is at its peak.

In order to check if my feeling of bias towards Tendulkar was not just a negative perception, I checked the cricinfo Website for Sachin's batting records. On the site I found a list of Tendulkar's career high scores. It was truly amazing to see 45 100s and 91 50s from the master blaster. I decided to concentrate only on the 100s Tendulkar had scored, that too, while batting second. As expected, Tendulkar had scored lesser number of hundreds while chasing (17) than while batting first (28). I also wanted to exclude those centuries he had scored against weaker teams like Kenya and Zimbabwe, while batting second. That brought down the number of hundreds to 11 batting second. Out of these I could see a clear distinction between his small hundreds (100-140)and big hundreds (140-190). Almost 90% of his 11 centuries in the 100-140 range were wins for India. On the other hand almost 90% of all hundreds in 140-190 range were losses.

I also observed another piece of statistics. Out of all the high scores in a losing cause, Tendulkar figured prominently. Out of 69 such instances of high scores by various batsmen in the world in a losing cause, Tendulkar's name figures 7 times. The contrast is glaring when you compare this with his other contemporaries like Ponting, Jayasuriya and Dravid, all of whom have one such occurence each in that list. Brian Lara doesn't even figure in the 'highest scores in a losing cause' list. Chris Gayle, with his one-man heroics for WI is a close second with 6 such high scores in a losing cause.

Of course you might argue that Tendulkar has played more matches and has more centuries and therefore has more such instances of failure. That could be partially true. But when a batsman of the calibre of Tendulkar is unable to win matches after scoring 140+ in so many cases, it probably indicates that he hasn't been able to reach the hall of greatness. You could also say that Tendulkar's team-mates have always let him down, making him carry all the burden till the end. Well, that is what great players are expected to do, right?

Does it mean Tendulkar plays more for his own records than for his team? Maybe not. But the records prove otherwise.