Battler Tendulkar holds his own against firefighter Waugh
For long an unqualified supporter of Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar bunged a spanner into the works last week by pronouncing that Steve Waugh was a better batsman than his fellow Mumbaikar
Sankhya Krishnan
27-Jun-2001
For long an unqualified supporter of Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar
bunged a spanner into the works last week by pronouncing that Steve
Waugh was a better batsman than his fellow Mumbaikar. Gavaskar's new
appraisal was based on the perception that Waugh had stood up under
pressure and delivered more often than Tendulkar. "It's time to listen
to the Australians who rate their captain as the best Test batsman in
the world for his ability to either win or save matches for his team
outside his home environs" he wrote.
The suggestion that Tendulkar hasn't won or saved matches for his team
often enough does merit a second look. One fact mustered in support is
that the team has rarely won when he has scored runs. For instance,
only six of Tendulkar's 25 centuries have figured in a winning cause;
in contrast, 19 of Waugh's 25 centuries have come in victories. In
winning Tests alone, Waugh averages 73.43 as opposed to Tendulkar's
55.2. But can Tendulkar be blamed for the team not winning on the
other occasions when he has scored a century? I think not. For that
matter, of Gavaskar's 34 hundreds, only six resulted in victories.
In his comments, Gavaskar was referring specifically to Waugh 'outside
his home environs'. The Australian captain does tend to lift his game
in unfamiliar settings. He averages eight runs more overseas than at
home, while Tendulkar is the exact reverse, averaging eight runs more
in India than abroad. Waugh has 13 away centuries in 12 Tests, of
which Australia won 9. Tendulkar has 13 away centuries himself but
India have won just one of those Tests. A damning figure, but which
reflects more on the relative merits of the two teams rather than the
two batsmen.
There is also the feeling that when it comes to the crunch, Tendulkar
has, more often than not, fallen short. A crunch situation could
appear in either the first innings (when the team has lost early
wickets) or in the second innings (when the team is seeking to set a
competitive target or when it is actually in the midst of the run
chase). Most Indian supporters can reel off instances when Tendulkar
has failed in delicate moments, especially in the second innings:
Bridgetown 1996/97, Harare 1998/99, Mumbai (vs RSA) 1999/2000, Kolkata
& Chennai (vs Australia) 2000/01 and Harare (2001). Waugh is widely
considered THE batsman in contemporary cricket for a crunch situation.
But how do they actually measure up?
Waugh's expertise at crisis management is backed up by his uncanny
knack for walking in at No.5 when the first three men have gone for
next to nothing and batting through the innings. Indeed he's been
involved in a partnership for the last wicket 21 times, as against
just four occasions for Tendulkar. Waugh's firefighting abilities have
been overwhelmingly roped in to defuse first innings situations: of
his 25 hundreds, an astonishing 23 have come in the first innings. His
most recent ton against India in Kolkata, although not exactly coming
in the midst of a crisis, was a fine example of his ability to
skillfully manoeuvre an advantage in the company of the tail, as
Australia advanced from 269/8 to 445.
But there is an alarming decline in his productivity as a game
approaches closer and closer to its denouement. Going into the second
innings, the pressure is more suffocating because you are after all at
the business end of the match when the rope is very, very short
indeed. Waugh's overall second innings average is 31.38 and in the
fourth innings, it slips even further to 22.68. In 25 fourth innings,
Waugh does not have a single fifty to his name, a statistic that is as
baffling as it is revealing.
If Tendulkar has his blots, so does Waugh. Australia have made a hash
of chasing modest targets too, at the Oval in 1997, Sydney against
Pakistan in 1995/96 and Adelaide against West Indies in 1992/93 to
cite just three instances, and Waugh was nowhere in the picture. Even
in India earlier this year, the Australian skipper could not stick
around long enough to avert danger in the second innings at Kolkata
and Chennai. Indeed, Waugh's most famous effort in a run chase came -
not in Tests - but in a one-day game against South Africa at Leeds in
1999 when, with Australia on the brink of elimination from the World
Cup, he produced a unbeaten 120. That was the moment when the legend
of Steve Waugh as someone to bat for your life took shape.
Tendulkar too has several priceless first innings efforts, notably at
Cape Town in 1996/97 when he produced 169 in a stand with Azharuddin
to rescue India from the perils of 58/5. Several other tons (Perth,
Jo'burg, Melbourne) have been magnificent pockets of resistance with
all else crumbling around him. Tendulkar averages a respectable 47.38
in all second innings (including eight tons) and 32.27 in fourth
innings, with two centuries, both of which were constructed in the
teeth of adversity.
In Manchester in 1990, India had slipped to 183/6 on the final
afternoon when, faced with the prospect of batting out the last two
and a half hours to save the game, Tendulkar and Manoj Prabhakar
joined hands with an unbroken 160-run stand. The 17-year-old was,
curiously enough, sporting a couple of pads borrowed from Gavaskar.
Then in Chennai in January 1999, he produced another superlative
effort of 136 that lifted India from 82/5 to within 17 runs of
victory. True, India lost, and if regarded as a failure on that count
(by Tendulkar himself if not by others), it was a truly heroic
failure.
The figures show Tendulkar has done very well for himself and more
than holds his own in any assessment. The fact that away wins are so
hard to come by for the Indian team makes the losses more painful to
swallow and perhaps we have been accustomed to judging him too
harshly. Again, Waugh's reputation for thriving under pressure was
made only in the post-1993 phase, on his return to the side after
being dropped. By then he was 28. Tendulkar has just crossed the same
landmark himself. His best years are almost certainly still ahead.