A story about Sachin

No one knows Sachin Tendulkar better than Sachin Tendulkar. If he thinks he can score international fifties and hundreds again, then he probably can, and right now among what must be a mind-ridden with doubt, there will be some semblance of confidence that he can come good again. If there wasn't he would've retired already. Now, I'm not for a minute going to tell Sachin Tendulkar what to do. He is arguably the greatest cricketer of the modern age and I'm an 18-year-old gap-year student.

But what I am going to do is tell you a story, a life story, and a story that relates to Tendulkar and what must be one of the most talked about retirements in the history of sport. When I was seven years old, my Dad returned from England's tour of India in 2001 with a BAS cricket bat. He'd got the bat from a factory where some of Tendulkar's bats are made, he'd even asked for Tendulkar's trademark red, blue and white grip to be applied to the little size four bat, and on the back, in a black ball point pen was Tendulkar's autograph.

For any cricket fan to possess such an item, it would mean the world to them, and to me, even at the age of seven, it did too. About three weeks after being given the bat, I sheepishly asked my Dad if he would be offended if I never used the bat in matches or at practice, as I didn't want the autograph to ever fade or for the bat to ever get damaged. In not using that bat I was looking to preserve the life of that autograph, my little piece of 'Sachin'.

Fans can actually do the same to players’ careers. Arguably Tendulkar's last two years have been driven by a reluctance to let his millions of fans down. But this reluctance to not let down, and desire to satisfy the masses, can only last so long. The preservation of something that is dying often only serves to tarnish or ruin - I learnt this bitter lesson a year after receiving my autographed bat... I was now eight and the bat was a year old. Only a year.

But one day I discovered the autograph to be fading - even despite my disinclination to use it. In my naive, clumsy, eight-year-old kind of way, I took the radical decision of pulling my black gel pen out of my pencil case and re-drawing over the signature on the back of the bat. To my horror my Dad told me later that day that the autograph was now worthless - completely ruined.

I'd tried to preserve my little bit of Sachin by not using the bat, and that had worked. But such things only work for so long, and in seeking to revitalise my precious possession, by taking my own pen to the bat, I'd ruined it. Again, I won't claim to know more about Tendulkar than Tendulkar himself, and if he thinks he's got runs left in him, he's probably got runs left in him. But it will be one of sports great tragedies if it gets to the stage where Tendulkar's attempted preservation of what he has left, is only acting as detriment to his legacy and impact on the game.

The curious case of Ravindra Jadeja

I read the news of Ravindra Jadeja scoring another triple-century, and chuckled to myself: "Another case of a giant at home at the first-class level, and a failure at the international level." Indeed, Jadeja has been the one thing worse than a failure - he has been India's favourite scapegoat.

For as long as he was in the team, every match we lost was somehow Jadeja's fault. His bowling appeared to be toothless, and his batting frankly didn't have enough power to clear the ropes - a pre-requisite for somebody coming in at No. 7. His batting is in the Mohammad Kaif mould - someone who can nudge the ball around, but someone who would not clear the ropes too often due to a limited technique.

And yet, despite all his shortcomings, his numbers reveal something different, and indicate that the Indian selectors may have missed a trick in handling his career. His profile tells me that even at List A level, he fails the basic pre-requisite for an allrounder - his batting average (28.96) is lower than his bowling average (30.85). On the other hand, consider his first-class statistics - a batting average of 53.12, with seven centuries (out of which a scarcely believable three were triples), and a bowling average of 27.49 with 10 five-wicket hauls.

Is it possible that the selectors pigeon-holed Jadeja as a bits-and-pieces limited-overs player, while his actual worth would be more in the longer format? His batting is certainly more suited to a No. 8 slot in the longer format, where he is under no pressure to go over the infield. His technique is limited, but that never stopped Dhoni. More importantly, he offers a decent spin option, especially in India. On unresponsive tracks, he can hold up one end, and on spinning tracks, he can be a wicket-taking bowler, as his first-class bowling average attests to.

Time will tell if Jadeja deserves a promotion in the batting order above Dhoni, and perhaps No. 6 might be too high for him, as it is for Dhoni. But as his first-class statistics attest to, Jadeja definitely deserves a shot at the highest level. I can scarcely believe I am writing these words. Give India's favourite scapegoat a chance. He might just take it.