All posts by h716a5.icu

He was, for most of us, not just a cricketing idol but a member of our family – one we could turn to for hope and comfort

Alagappan Muthu24-Apr-2023There is an essential component to fake news. The consumer has to want to believe it. So it needs to be something seductive. Something evocative. Something that feeds into the popular belief.When Barack Obama was the US president, a quote was once ascribed to him, where he wanted to understand why his country’s GDP went down every time Sachin Tendulkar went out to bat. (Presumably because all the Indian Americans were too busy watching cricket to be productive at work.)There is nothing in the public record to substantiate a single word of this. Yet it caught on like a college nickname. Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, it’s out there now and everybody else likes it.Somewhere in the meme-ification of this story is the truth of what one man meant to more than a billion people. We didn’t stop at any of the red flags. We saw a world leader known for being thoughtful and genuine praising our childhood hero and we wanted it to be true because it made us feel good.Sachin just made us feel good.It’s his birthday today. His 50th. And there is a thing he used to do whenever he reached that milestone on the field. He’d tilt his head to one side, raise his bat but not all the way up, just sort of shoulder-height, with the face tilted down. And if the sun caught him at the right angle, the shadow from the visor of his helmet would hide his eyes, giving off major boss vibes.Related

Boy wonder down under

Quiz: How well do you remember Tendulkar's career? (2021)

The man whom cricket loved back (2013)

Tendulkar's perfect balance (2013)

It has been ten years since he retired, but the biggest batting records continue to bear his name. Most runs. Most hundreds. Most fifties. Some of those records might stand all the way until the end of time. And some of them are only under threat because, a) his successor is also ridiculously prolific, and b) the white ball don’t reverse-swing no more.Statistics, though, are only tools. They can, at best, guide us when there is a choice to be made. The decision itself comes from a far more primal place.Look and feel.And Sachin offered up a ton of both. Straight drives with so little fuss it felt like the fulfilment of a pact. “Just be a good ball and go for four, okay?” Back-foot punches that combined the grace of a ballet dancer with the power of a heavyweight fighter. And those flicks. If they could talk, they’d be like, “Come on, man. Don’t make it this easy.” He was geometric perfection. But also a bit cheeky. Sometimes, when the required rate was getting to him, he would play a shot that didn’t make sense even as it happened right before our eyes. An inside-out drive for six over cover to a ball pitching outside leg stump. That stuff was freestyle. That stuff was gangsta.Plus, he went and did all this to the best of the best. Wasim Akram. Shane Warne. Courtney Walsh. Glenn McGrath. Muthiah Muralidaran. This five-foot nothing prodigy made world-beating his day job, and that at a time when Indians didn’t fancy themselves capable of such audacity. This is how he made people who had no connection to him want good things for him. By that definition alone, he became like family. He became the stranger we kept calling by first name.Legitimacy helped. Especially when it came from the greatest batter in history. “I’ve only seen Tendulkar on the television,” Sir Don Bradman said, “And I was very, very struck by his technique and I asked my wife to come and have a look at him because I said, ‘I never saw myself play but I feel that this fella is playing much the same as I used to play’.”

Suddenly Sachin’s greatness started to make sense. He got so good because he wanted to make everybody – including himself – happy

Legendary innings helped. Sharjah 1998. Chennai 1999. Centurion 2003. But really, the relationship between a player and a fan – more specifically between Sachin and his fans – was personal. Some 19-year-olds right now probably owe their very existence to that six he hit off Shoaib Akhtar.I went to a house party in college. My crush was there. I was worried I’d spend the whole thing gawking at her and being weird. Fortunately the TV was showing a rerun of the CB Series final of 2008, allowing me to gawk at that and be weird in a less embarrassing way.I have not seen peak Sachin first-hand. The Perth century. The Qadir takedown. The Desert Storm. My memories of him are all of the accumulator that he became later in his career. The artist who became a technician, culling all the risk out of his game in order to increase productivity. But there was still some magic left. Like Chennai 2008, where his only Test-match-winning century in a chase came just a few days after a terror attack on his city.It was one of his more bespoke innings. He left nothing to chance. Not even the fate of his non-striker. For 42 overs, he was the voice inside Yuvraj Singh’s head. And when it was done, he dedicated the win to the people of Mumbai and hoped it might in some small way ease their pain. Stone-cold precision born out of warmth, feeling and empathy. Suddenly Sachin’s greatness started to make sense. He got so good because he wanted to make everybody – including himself – happy.He has tried to do the same after the end of his career as well, but it has probably not had the same effect. Mindful of the way the Indian media functions, grabbing anything he says and turning it into a headline, he exercises an abundance of caution in all of his public appearances. He tries so hard not to say the wrong thing that he ends up barely saying anything.We are pushing it, of course, asking a private citizen to be more vocal just because at one point he used to carry all of our hopes and dreams. And it feels very on brand that even on his birthday, we’re the ones asking for presents. It was deeply unfair for us to burden him that way in the first place and it was remarkable that he was able to shoulder that weight for so long. Sachin doesn’t belong to us anymore. He belongs to Anjali, Arjun and Sara now. And he’s earned the break. Twenty-four years of being at our beck and call is enough. Probably.

Bittersweet emotions in victory and defeat ahead of conversion to county competition in 2025

ESPNcricinfo staff and ECB Reporters Network21-Sep-2024Kate Coppack, Sunrisers’ matchwinner in the last-ever staging of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, paid tribute to the resilience within the squad, as they capped the competition’s short history with victory over South East Stars in a rain-affected final at Grace Road.Coppack chose the perfect moment to produce career-best figures of 4 for 27, as South East Stars stumbled early in the powerplay then lost wickets at regular intervals thereafter, with only Alice Davidson-Richards’ superb 93 from 105 balls providing any lasting resistance.In pursuit of a sub-par 213, Sunrisers got themselves ahead of the rate early thanks to Cordelia Griffiths’ boundary-studded 57, and though they shipped three wickets in the first half of their innings, Grace Scrivens had the chase firmly under control with her unbeaten 39 from 47 balls, before a thunderstorm forced an early end to the contest.The victory, albeit via DLS, completed one of the more remarkable turnarounds in the short history of women’s professional cricket, given that Sunrisers did not win a single contest in each of the first three stagings of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy.”There have been a lot of highs and lows as the Sunrisers so to end like that is really special,” Coppack, 30, told the ECB Reporters Network, having been a regular in their squad since 2021.”I wasn’t involved in the first year but Danni [Warren] and people have been building a team over the years. It was always going to take a while.”I think you have to give credit to Scrivens coming in as captain. She is still really young but has learned quickly and is good at balancing people and when to bowl them. Having the same group around for the last few years, and people having trust in us has really helped as we could have tried to start again when things weren’t going well.”Away from cricket, Coppack is a lawyer, while her family also run an alpaca farm. “I’ve always been a pay-to-play player and try to balance work as well,” she said. “There have been a couple of us who have been doing that, but it is nice to see the game go more professional.”For Warren, Sunrisers’ director of cricket, the victory was vindication for the team’s perseverance, even when the going was particularly tough in the early years of the competition. It also provides the squad with a fillip ahead of next year’s switch to a county format, with Essex taking over the management of the Tier 1 team that will represent the region.”It is the culmination of a lot of hard work for a lot of people, for players and backroom staff,” Warren said. “We started this era with a group of players who were untested and untried at this level and we have identified some gems.”They have done it as an exciting group of young players who are probably come together slightly more than the sum of their part. We are the underdogs – and we like that term.”There have been a lot of tears and a lot of soul-searching from a lot of people. The lowest point was the four overthrows off the final ball against Storm in 2022. The story of that time was that we found a way to lose, now we have found a way to win – and that’s a brilliant thing.”With this group of girls you don’t know who the hero is going to be, any of them can put in a performance. There will be a happy person sat in the corner later looking around the room and seeing how far we have come. But I don’t see this as the end of an era, I just see it as momentum into the next one.”Alice Davidson-Richards held the Stars top order together•Getty Images for Surrey CCCEmma Calvert, South East Stars’ director of cricket, was understandably disconsolate as her team finished on the losing side in two finals this summer, following their defeat to The Blaze in the Charlotte Edwards Cup in June.”It is gutting,” she said. “It is the end of an era and a sad way to end that era. We wanted to go out there, put on a performance and win the trophy but we have no control over the weather.”DLS is a funny thing. I backed us to take those wickets and see it through to the end. But what happened, happened and congratulations to Sunrisers. I have seen how much effort has gone in to building that program and it is an incredible end to that journey.”Alice Davidson-Richards is an incredible player, we all know that. She is disappointed more than anyone because although she put on that performance her team didn’t win and that is what means the most to her.”South East Stars are set to be absorbed into Surrey’s all-conquering set-up from 2025 onwards, but Warren admitted it was a bittersweet moment as this initial domestic era comes to an end.”We are incredibly excited to become Surrey but in this moment it feels quite hard,” she added. “The girls are so excited to start the journey with the three feathers on our chest.”We have been on a journey and to get to two finals this year is an incredible end. November 1 is the official day we go live as Surrey, but before then we’ll have words tonight and have our awards and really celebrate what we have achieved.”Although we haven’t lifted a trophy today, we have achieved a lot and I think it is worth celebrating that.”

Real Madrid are reportedly one of five elite clubs interested in signing Crystal Palace midfielder Adam Wharton. The 20-year-old England star has become one of the hottest properties in the Premier League, and delivered another masterclass in Sunday’s Community Shield clash against Liverpool.

Real Madrid lead chase for WhartonFive European giants circle for his signaturePalace braced for £100m midfield raidFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

According to Real Madrid have zeroed in on Wharton as the perfect long-term architect for their midfield. He is viewed as a cerebral and composed operator whose passing precision could carry the club’s engine room into a new era, following the departures of Toni Kroos and Luka Modric.

AdvertisementGetty Images SportTHE BIGGER PICTURE

New boss Xabi Alonso, himself a midfield maestro in his playing days, has told Real chiefs he wants a technically gifted ball-player to orchestrate matches from deep. Wharton, with his composure and tactical intelligence, is ticking all the right boxes.

TELL ME MORE

Real are not alone in the chase. Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Tottenham have all stepped up their monitoring of the Palace prodigy, while scouts have been a regular fixture at Selhurst Park this year. Tottenham even tested the waters before the FA Cup final in May with an enquiry, only to find Palace standing firm. 

DID YOU KNOW?

Palace know exactly what they have: a homegrown jewel with the potential to dominate midfields for the next decade. Their message to any potential suitors is blunt: pay £100 million ($136m) or look elsewhere for a player who has a contract until 2029. Real Madrid are known for their Galacticos ideology, and with Wharton’s profile rising with each game, it remains to be seen if the Bernabeu hierarchy is convinced to stump out such a massive fee for a 21-year-old.