“There are long
queues of people waiting outside a TV shop. All the box-shaped devices, big or
small are displaying the same picture - A five feet five-inch-tall figure is
manoeuvring the ball in all the directions of the field. As the young and old,
with their eyes glued to the Television screens, watch in awe, the stage is set
for yet another Tendulkar Century!”
Giving nightmares
to the bowlers as he redefined batting, Tendulkar as a bowler too, was a treat
to watch. He may get hit for runs, but then he would ensure to take wickets, he
was every captain’s safe bet when it came to breaking the long partnerships of
the opposition at the crucial stage of the game. After all, it's not an easy
feat to take 200 wickets in International Cricket.
As Sachin
remained the pillar of the National team, he along with his teammates, Ganguly,
Dravid, Sehwag and Laxman, collectively termed as the ‘Fab 5’ formed a team
which taught us to win matches consistently not only in the subcontinent but
also outside it and thus brought Team India to a formidable stature which it
enjoys today.
Tendulkar: From
a boy-wonder to Child Prodigy to the Little Master to God. His journey was
awe-inspiring. His cricketing career, a 24-year long walk on the 22 yards was
the entire childhood for the kids born in the early nineties. Thus, Tendulkar
remains even today, in their hearts not as a mere cricketer but as an emotion.
The mere mention of whose name gives them goosebumps.
When Tendulkar
hung his boots in 2014, there was a strange vacuum in the hearts of the
cricketing enthusiasts, those nineties kids who were all grownups now. This
void, however, was soon filled by a Delhi boy who was once himself among those
nineties kids who grew up watching the great Tendulkar bat. And thus the stage
was set for Virat Kohli.
As his career
progressed, he proved to be a more lethal weapon of the Indian squad, a deadly
combination of Ganguly’s courage and Tendulkar’s discipline.
Being Virat is
not easy though, when every day you are being watched closely and when you are
always compared with the Master who is your admiration in cricket. But, Kohli
did not let the outer world hamper his inner self and kept scoring runs,
breaking records after records. Very soon he may go on to break Tendulkar's
record of 49 ODI centuries which at one stage seemed unfathomable.
As Kohli
remains the cornerstone of India’s success, he with the likes of Dhoni and
Rohit Sharma are taking the reins of the team further whose seeds were sown by
the Fab 5.
Kohli: From a
Star Player to Captain to the King, the journey is on at it’s going on a rapid
pace.
As we approach
2020, there are no more long queues outside the TV Shops. Thanks to the Digital
India movement, every hand now has got a big or a small device which can now
store a plethora of apps and an unimaginable size of data. And at the end of
any cricketing day when people browse through the cricket news, Kohli has
already hit yet another century.
When they look
at the ease with which Kohli scores runs, these people who were mere
toddlers in the nineties, who in the cricketing arena call themselves as the
disciples of God, they are followers of the King today.
