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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

On your 106th

They say human beings are obsessed about the number ten because they have ten digits in every limb. For the same reason, numbers like 100, 1000, 10000, are more lucrative than, say, 671, 2342, and 38247 despite the magnitude. There was a reason that people had waited with bated breath in anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar’s hundredth international hundred, despite meaninglessness of the milestone.

You did not reach the 100-mark they have so yearned for. We will never know now whether you had tears in your eyes that day. All we know is that they have never made anyone like you, and they are not likely to make another. Even a hundred hundreds will not take the sheen away from the magic number of 99.94 — a number beyond the dreams of mortals in any format of the sport at any level.

There is no doubt that you were the greatest. The only debatable aspect is whether you were the greatest across sports; whether anyone has dominated any sport the way you had; whether their failures pipped war news to the headlines when you failed: it was an occurrence that unthinkable.

Tales can be concocted to the liking of the narrators. Numbers, on the other hand, leave no scope for imagination. You have ruled the world of numbers. Once again, 99.94 remains beyond the scope of mere mortals, despite the fact that we live in an era when 50 is fast becoming the new 45.

It was fitting in a way that you did not reach the 100-mark. It reduced your godlike stature that little bit, making us believe that even you could be felled, even you are mortal. Had cricket been a religion, you would certainly have been a god; but that 99.94 made you become a Hercules instead of a Zeus: beyond the impregnable exterior there lay a human being.


Happy 106th, Sir Don.

10 comments:

  1. Some nice anecdotes here: http://www.rediff.com/cricket/report/special-bradman-and-some-humorous-anecdotes/20120827.htm

    Has there ever been another, whose failures trumped war headines, as you say?

    Has there ever been another, whose successes inspired a whole new tactic like Bodyline?

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the URL.

      As for the other two, I guess I will have to say "no" and "no".

      Delete
  2. The subtext of this post is an excellent point, which is often missed in the missing-100-average description. The lack of the 0.06 is essentially a meaningless sense of aesthetics (granted the significance attached to centuries in the history and culture of cricket), the real point about his excellence is, as you point out, the distance from the second best, despite the score inflation of today! It is interesting to ask how the comparison would hold with other sports: If you took, say, Roger Federer (or Djokovich/Murray/Nadal) in his heyday, how many topranked players would one have to not count so that the balance was similar? The problem is quantifying what in other sports is closest to a batting average.

    And one point about the new 50 being the old 45 ...I think this iis a good mapping from the mid-late eighties (when many in our generation started watching cricket) to current times, I believe there was a bigger change even before due to covering of pitches. So the inflation from Bradman's time is even more.

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  3. Wish you would give small reviews of your last viewed and last read.Would be great.
    In anticipation.
    Sharmistha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is a nice idea. I will do that.

      PS: There are other ways to reach out to me if the comment is not related to the post.

      Delete

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