It was Sach a testing time!

Sachin Tendulkarrsquos career is considered a resounding success globally It is for exactly this reason that his recent revelation at a Legends of Unacademy live session to being anxious and on edge for over a decade in the early years is so relevant To Tendulkarrsquos list of virtues one must now underline resilience That said itrsquos not hard to understand the amount of despair he encountered after getting the captaincy post Mohammed Azharuddinrsquos series loss in the English summer of 1996 Tendulkarrsquos captaincy yearsmdashacross two stintsmdashhad more dejection than dollops of joyMind you Tendulkarrsquos captaincy chapter started with flowing prose as it were with home wins over Australia oneoff Test for the inaugural BorderGavaskar and a 21 Test series triumph over Hansie Cronjersquos men apart from the capture of the Titan Cup oneday triangular seriesThe home fixtures were quickly followed by a tour of South Africa where India lost the Test series 02 and the triangular series involving the hosts and Zimbabwe However massive the Test losses may have been it came as no great surprise considering Indiarsquos poor overseas record The third and final Test was there to be won but India were thwarted by the weatherI happened to interview Tendulkar at the airport on the teamrsquos return and while he didnrsquot make it sound like an excuse he did bring up the aspect of adapting to the South African strips ldquoWe played only one game v Eastern Province at Port Elizabeth before the Tests on a slow track and next we played on the fastest track at Durban so there was a big contrastrdquo he said It was at Durban where India were bowled out for 66 ndash the lowest score by an opposing side in South Africa The 328run defeat was followed by a 282run loss in Cape Town despite scintillating hundreds from the captain and exskipper Azharuddin Then came the frustrating Test at Johannesburg which ended in a draw despite Rahul Dravid scoring 148 and 81At the airport Tendulkar took each question calmly and the only one which he seemed a touch annoyed with was about whether on afterthought he could have been better on the batting and captaincy fronts He said firmly ldquoI have been giving my best I canrsquot stretch more Whenever I go in I give it allrdquoTendulkar faced all sorts of pressures and high expectations were certainly not the least of them The tour of the West Indies later that year gave Tendulkar one of his most disappointing moments in his career ndash the defeat in the Barbados Test Needing 120 for victory his side collapsed for 81 His book Playing It My Way gives one an idea of the kind of heartbreak it may have been He also provided an insight into his feelings at the crease facing a 323 situation ldquoI got out for just four In my anxiety to get a feel for the ball I got a tentative edge I should either have left the ball alone or tried to counterattack The defeat left me totally devastated I shut myself in my room for two whole days trying to come to terms with the lossrdquoTendulkarrsquos captaincy years coincided with Sri Lankarsquos dominance on the oneday scene and they frustrated India in Test cricket too But the World Cup defending champions were not even part of the Champions Trophy held in Sharjah towards the end of the 1997 when India lost their games against England Pakistan and West Indies Tendulkarrsquos loss of words on arrival was understandable ldquoNothing much to sayrdquo the 23yearold India captain uttered even before we turned on our dictaphonesBy 1999 he was captain again and his first challenge came in the form of old ODI foes Sri Lanka under new captain Sanath Jayasuriya and Steve Waughrsquos Australia in the Aiwa Cup triangular in Sri LankaTendulkar woke up with a stiff back on the morning of August 28 and couldnrsquot play the game against Australia at Colombo He returned for the next game against Sri Lanka scored one of his most uneasy centuries in pain and saw his side win But Indiarsquos net runrate was not good enough to qualify for the final against Australia Even the touring journalists couldnrsquot help feel sorry for him ldquoI was feeling a bit stiff before deciding to play the Sri Lanka game but there are times when you just got to push yourself This was a doordie situation and it does not matter even if I break down The aim was to take India to the final I tried my bestrdquo he told usThe tour of Australia was another frustrating experience for captain Tendulkar And like in Sri Lanka the Indians did not qualify for the triangular series final held after the Test series which Waughrsquos Australians won 30 Tendulkar was gutted to see India give away the advantage to Pakistan at the Gabba where Wasim Akramrsquos men won off the last ballIn Hobart against archrivals Pakistan Tendulkar batted attractively for his 93 After opening partner Ganguly departed for 43 the next highest scorer was Mr Extras with 22 Tendulkar came to the press conference at the Bellerive Oval without coach Kapil Dev who normally accompanied the captain ldquoThe bowling was disappointingrdquo he said while a jubilant Akram felt sorry for his rival skipper ldquoThey depend too much on Sachin I feel sorry for him The poor chap has to take all that pressurerdquoIndeed Tendulkar absorbed pressure over an extended period of time like no other cricketer He must be saluted for thatmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper