Obsession To Call Sachin As The Greatest

Rajdeep Sardesai asking all the cricket experts on Kings Of Cricket program to compare Bradman and Tendulkar made me laugh. Why people are so obsessed with calling Sachin as the greatest. What made me laugh even more was Border's reply. Border said "look Bradman average is  around 100 and Sachin averages in 50s with many other players.

Before turning to Allan Border, he asked Imran Khan and Vivian Richards for comparison. Imran Khan has recently commented when he was in India a couple of months back to unveil the World Cup trophy that he has not seen Bradman and that Vivian Richards was the best batsman against pace bowling and Inzimam the second best. If a general cricket enthusiast like me knows that, I do not think that a senior journalist like Rajdeep Sardesai does not. Rajdeep Sardesai still went ahead and asked Imran to make a comparison between Tendulkar and Bradman. On the same program, a couple of days back, Rajdeep told Imran during a conversation that he will not ask him to make comparison between Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar and just the other day he defies his own statement and asks the same question. What a pity. If you yourself have a doubt if Sachin Tendulkar was the greatest batsman, then why ask the expert who have picked other batsman as the greater batsman. An embarrassed Imran Khan tried to salvage the situation by saying that Sachin is probably the best of his time just for the amount of runs he scored. It looked to me as if Rajdeep Sardesai want to make all these expert to pronounce Tendulkar as the greatest batsmen.

Vivian Richards had maintained in an interview to Nasser Hussain a couple of years back that Gavaskar, Javed Miandad, and Greg Chappell are the three greatest batsmen that he has ever seen. Now he also says that Sachin is the best on being asked by the Indian media.

Another interesting fact is that the media often asks Lara as to who was a better batsman between himself and Tendulkar. Lara has always been generous in heaping praise on Sachin and said that Sachin was best or Sachin is the Bradman of our time. The media never asks Sachin Tendulkar as to who is the best batsman of his time or all time. For that matter the media never asks Sachin if Lara or himself was a better batsman. Lara has often called Sachin as the best, but Sachin has never called Lara as the best. I do not know who was better of Bradman and Sachin. One thing I know is Lara was unique and the best of his time.

Does that mean Sachin and his fan wants Sachin to be called as the greatest batsman of all time at any cost. Is it the reason why Sachin always keeps on building on records. Is it the reason why Sachin never misses a series against Bangladesh. My guess is as good as any other cricketing enthusiast.