T20 is here to stay and thrive

Ask Me!! I say....These are momentous times for cricket. There is the unmistakable sensation that the nature and course of the game are about to be changed forever. No doubt big deals went down in the 1770s when Hambledon were strutting their stuff on Broadhalfpenny Down. The shift was pretty dramatic when Test cricket began a century later, and then a century after that when One-Day Internationals, with floodlights and fancy flannels, was born.

But the advent and significance of Twenty20 compares with and probably surpasses any of that. In the past few days, it has been possible to believe that the shortest, brightest form of the game will shortly conquer the world. Something has started here and nothing will be the same again. The inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa has been captivating. It was heralded by a breathtaking hundred from Chris Gayle, and nothing could have been better designed to persuade people to sit up and take notice than 117 from 57 balls.

The first week has been fast and furious, the joy enhanced by the realisation that players are learning as they go. England have stumbled into the second stage and play the first of three Super Eight matches tonight against South Africa. It has became obvious that the advance of Twenty20, invented in England four years ago, is unstoppable. The formation of a Champions League has been announced initially, the finalists from the Twenty20 competitions in England, Australia, South Africa and India.

It is being financed and marketed by India, will probably take place in Dubai and has a prize pot of £ 2.5m, of which £ 1m will go to the winners. That alone will have a huge bearing. In England, for instance, this year's championship winners will receive £ 100,000 for success over 64 days of cricket. If a similar number of hours can net you 10 times that, it does not take long to work out where you might put your resources. The number of group games in the England and Wales Cricket Board's (ECB) competition has been increased to 10, double that of the first year.

There is a danger of killing the goose, and the showbiz adage of leaving 'em wanting more seems to have been forgotten. A pity, because Twenty20 is nothing if not showbiz. All this has been accompanied by verbal appendices that Test cricket will be preserved. Maybe, but there are reasons to wonder. Twenty20 is magnificent entertainment. Fans feel part of it. Television, especially in India, was wary awhile, because you can get fewer adverts in 40 overs, and therefore less income than in 100, the span of the previously orthodox one-dayers.

But there are signs that telly is getting round that by wrapping adverts around the action or rolling them across the screen. Nobody should doubt that the administrators have recognised Twenty20's value, and while they know it is beholden on them to protect Test sanctity, that will become increasingly difficult. At present the intention is to restrict the number of Twenty20 matches played by national sides each year to seven outside International Cricket Council (ICC) events such as this. If sponsors and TV wish to be associated with Twenty20, the wind might be heading only in one direction.

Sachin Tendulkar driven by fear of failure

OK, here are the statistics. First the 417 one-day internationals during which he has pillaged 16,361 runs with a record 42 centuries; then the 146 Test matches producing 11,782 runs and 39 centuries. Thirty-nine Test centuries: the most any Englishman has made is 22. He needs just few runs to overtake Brian Lara and move into first place in the all-time list of heaviest Test run scorers. With his amalgamated tally of 28,143 runs and 81 centuries, Sachin Tendulkar is, of course, easily the most prolific international batsman in history.

Those are the facts. They quantify a career of extraordinary achievement that has made Tendulkar a sporting megastar and the richest cricketer that ever lived. Quite apart from the restaurant chain named after him and the Ferraris he is gifted, last year he signed a three-year commercial deal worth £22 million with Iconix, the marketing arm of Saatchi and Saatchi. Currently he advertises on TV everything from mobile phones and motor bikes to soft drinks, biscuits, cereal and deodorants. Indians literally speak, eat, drink and breathe him.

But what about the man? What lies beneath the diminutive frame and the cherubic face that has contrived to make him such a phenomenon, and how does he cope with the adoration and expectation of a billion Indians?Now 34, and in his 19th season on the international stage, can he quell the rumblings of general decline and steer India to their first Test series win in England for 20 years, or will this be the Little Master's quiet swansong?

If Tendulkar had seen reports of the furore surrounding David Beckham's arrival at Los Angeles Galaxy last weekend he would have been permitted a cynical smile. It's the kind of thing he deals with on a daily basis back home. Feted by a cricket-mad people, he is gawped and goggled at wherever he goes. Hundreds of rubber-neckers cluster around the Indian team bus as the players leave for the ground at the end of a day. They cry Sachin's name and attempt to touch him or push scraps of paper, rupee notes, even dried leaves at him to be signed. The same circus confronts him when the team arrive a short while later at their hotel. They are escorted inside to the lobby where a third wave of well-wishers - those smartly enough dressed to be let in - descends on their heroes requesting photo opportunities with their mobile phones.

It is an exhausting business being an Indian star and Tendulkar, forever the No 1 target, has evolved a particular technique to deal with such attention. He blanks everyone, deliberately avoiding eye contact. He justifies this by explaining that if he engages with just one face, one person, many others will see his lowered guard and clamour for his attention, and the situation would quickly get out of control. He knows such situations would be emotionally draining. Something has to give.

As it happens this avoidance approach suits Tendulkar. He is something of a paradox. He performs on a global stage yet actually doesn't like attention, invariably preferring the comfort and security of his home and close family to the sycophancy and scrutiny of public life. He is a private person, who occasionally used to venture out (sometimes in disguise) but now invariably retreats to his hotel room after play and, when traveling, plugs into his iPod rather than risk conversing with anyone. A rich and glamorous businesswoman who found herself sat next to him on a plane one day was amazed that he didn't pay her even a single glance throughout the journey.

In keeping with his personality, his batting is entirely methodical. It revolves around careful preparation and an economy of movement. His strokes are neat and compact. There is the occasional streak of virtuosity but his batting lacks the pure showmanship and bravado of other latter day greats like Lara or Viv Richards. Where those men attempted to demolish attacks, Tendulkar dissects them: he is a surgeon at work. To Lara a net was an occupational hazard; to Tendulkar it is the laboratory to create clinical perfection. He plans his innings meticulously and is forever working on something, roughing up practice pitches outside leg stump to simulate facing Shane Warne (he made 155 not out after doing so), or yesterday at Lord's honing his judgment against left-arm swingers and spinners, to replicate the angle and style of England's Ryan Sidebottom and Monty Panesar.

While Lara has been ostentatious in everything he has done - building extravagant homes, dating beautiful women, playing daring innings - living life on a Snakes and Ladders board, Tendulkar likes consistency and routine, residing in a duplex apartment with his wife and son in the leafy, seaside Bombay suburb of west Bandra close to where he grew up, dominated by plasma screens and hi-fis, and probably computer chess.

So far this intense single-mindedness has been strength. It has enabled him to concentrate on the job without distraction, and pile up records. But there are suggestions that, as he embarks on his 19th year of international cricket, it is becoming a weakness. Friends say he is almost a recluse and they find it hard to talk to him. As his power wanes, he is increasingly sensitive of criticism and wary of advice, almost as if he is in denial.

He had a fraught relationship with Greg Chappell; India's recently departed coach, because Chappell confronted his emerging flaws and proposed solutions. Questions last week from a journalist about Tendulkar's apparent vulnerability against pace bowling were blocked with a blunt no comment. But time waits for no one, and he is not the dominant force he was, as only one Test century in three years against a front-line Test nation - Sri Lanka - proves. After the disastrous World Cup there was an unprecedented call for his removal.

Watching him practicing at Lord's yesterday, a diminutive figure with bat and pads that appear too big for him, and hearing his thin, reedy voice, it is hard to escape the conclusion that he is a boy who never grew up. He is the Peter Pan of cricket, a precocious genius who retains a touchingly naive view of the world. He believes inherently that if he continues to do his thing, the power will return and those nasty Captain Hooks (the bowlers) will be cut back down to size.

The evidence, however, is that - at international level - he has developed a slight fear of failure. Latterly he has been more tentative in his play, less commanding, and it has cost him his wicket for an average of only 38 (as against a career average of 55). It seemed to have become a complex at this year's World Cup where, in the two key games against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka he seemed apprehensive and reluctant to play a shot, and was bowled both times for a sum total of four runs.

Recently there have been signs of him returning to a more dominant approach, and he toyed with the young England Lions bowlers last Saturday. Yet he has become so fastidious about his preparation he will not feel ready until he has gone through every permutation of bowlers and strategies. Yesterday he asked for an extra left-arm seamer to bowl in his net, and has requested two Panesar-like left-arm spinners be provided today (how ironic that India can't supply one themselves). He has been laboriously fine-tuning his judgment outside off stump, recalling that England's favored way of dismissing him is with a repetitive attack wide of the stumps.

You could look at this meticulousness two ways. Either its assiduous attention to detail, leaving no stone unturned in the quest for perfection, or its obsession bordering on neurosis that is in danger of curtailing his natural flair. There is a risk of paralysis by analysis. Bowlers used to be in awe of Tendulkar. Have the tables finally turned?

There is a mitigating factor. For all his amazing achievements, Tendulkar's name is not among the legends on the honors board in the visitors' dressing-room at Lord's. He has never made a Test century at the headquarters of cricket, indeed his highest score there is 31. Though he claims not to be motivated by statistics, he is keen, not to say desperate, to set the record straight. But, as Confucius might say, he who intensely desires, risks misfiring.

Tendulkar passes another milestone

15000 & Counting

When Sachin Tendulkar reached his fifty in the second ODI against South Africa, he went past another milestone in a career chequered with record-breaking moments. Tendulkar became the first batsman to accumulate 15,000 runs in ODIs - he was the first to 10,000 runs as well - and that didn't come as a surprise considering the productivity of his long career.

In the 189 ODI innings he has played when India has won, Tendulkar has scored 9061 runs at an average of 56.98, with a strike-rate of 89.72, all figures higher than his overall average. He averages 47.96 in 36 finals (of tournaments involving three teams or more), though the fact that he has scored only four hundreds, and that only 13 of those matches have resulted in wins, might come as a disappointment. Incidentally, he averages 89.10 at a strike-rate of nearly 100 when the team has won in a final.

He instantly became the face of the day-night game, and in fact Tendulkar has scored the highest number of runs while batting second in a day-night game and is third on the list of all-time highest averages while chasing under lights.

Tendulkar has scored the most runs by far (12019) while batting in the top three. However, a few batsmen have averaged better than him in the top-order, though none in the top five apart from Sir Viv Richards come close to his batting strike-rate.

Though he's been dismissed in the 90s in two consecutive matches, Tendulkar can take heart from his performance against South Africa in the ongoing series in Ireland. South Africa is the only team against whom he has failed to maintain an average score of 35 per innings.

Interestingly, the South African bowlers have managed to keep him quiet over the years, as reflected in his low strike-rate of 71.42 against them. The reason for his success at Belfast could be the absence of Shaun Pollock. Pollock has dismissed Tendulkar nine times in ODIs, along with Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas. The other successful bowlers include Glenn McGrath and Heath Streak, who have dismissed him seven times each.

Tendulkar also performs better at neutral venues than at home in India. His record in away games though is unimpressive.

Tendulkar currently averages over 50 in the 13 matches he has played in 2007. He has finished five years so far with an average of over 50 in ODIs. However, after a successful 2003 World Cup, he suffered a slump. He averaged a measly 34.97 in 37 innings in 2004 and 2005. Also, his strike-rate dropped gradually from 87.36 in 2003 to 77.05 in 2006.

Since the 2003 World Cup, Tendulkar has played 72 innings, in which he has scored 2824 runs at an average of 43.44 at a strike-rate of 81.85. He opened the batting in only 58 of these innings and though his record at No. 4 was equally impressive, he failed while batting one-down. In four innings at No.3, he averaged 8.75 and had a woeful strike-rate of 54.68. Clearly, Tendulkar prefers not to take first strike while opening the innings.

Although of late, he's looked to play with caution, he can be destructive and equally dismissive of opposition bowlers at will, as seen in the latest innings against South Africa, where he pulled the ball with an air of nonchalance.

That list includes the magical 49-ball 82 against New Zealand, Tendulkar's first as an opener. Since then, it's been many more runs on the board. Tendulkar has scored almost 26,000 runs in international cricket, and looks unlikely to be overtaken soon unless his nearest rival Brian Lara comes out of retirement as stated and makes runs at a far greater pace than his contemporary.