Sachin Tendulkar was best supporting actor, not hero

From 1990 to 2013 till Sachin Tendulkar retired there were 34 Test highlights for Indian cricket both home and away While Rahul Dravid played the lead nine times in these series Tendulkar played the leading role only thrice PICGeTTY IMAGeSBack in 1982 when a young student of cricket coach Desh Prem Azad had bowled to a then rising star the result hadnt been flattering The batsman was Chetan Sharma and the person on the other end of the practice net was a young boy who we now know as filmmaker Jaideep Varma He promptly despatched my fulltoss towards a hapless window that broke into several pieces and led to a volley of chaste Punjabi abuses from our coach Unable to glower back at him Chetan came up to me instead and explained how a ball had to delivered Make the ball land like an aeroplane he said Jaideep tells usAakash ChopraFour years later in Sharjah after Javed Miandad had hoisted an almost identical ball for IndoPak crickets most infamous six Varma couldnt help but be amused This time it was Chetans ball that had been thrashedCricket after all is an unpredictable sport The cliches of today are likely to become gamechangers of tomorrow So if anything we understand why Jaideep prefers to describe this episode as his favourite cricket memoryJaideep didnt go on to play firstclass cricket and instead dabbled in films and won the National Film Award for a docu film on music band Indian Ocean His engagement with the sport however continued resulting in the Impact Index II an alternative statistical system analyising cricketing performaces which was first unveiled in 2009 at the ICC Centenary Conference at OxfordA soon to release book Numbers Do Lie HarperCollins India that the II team Jaideep Soham Sarkhel and Nikhil Narain coauthored with former cricketer Aakash Chopra now hopes to cement these findings for posterityThe unusually written book turns all conventional assumptions about cricket on their head with often sensational revelations about statistics For instance what if you were told that Sunil Gavaskar is Indias unluckiest cricketer Or that Sachin Tendulkar was a greater support act than a leading one in Tests And that R Ashwins impact in Test cricket so far is greater than Sir Donald Bradmans Impact Index looks at cricket from a match and series perspective and not the aggregate pointofview which is the conventional way of judging cricketers This makes it a much more teamfriendly analysis explains Jaideep creator of IIThe book reveals 61 untold stories Aakashs role explains Jaideep was to give these findings a context His candid analysis and counterobservations only add weight and dimension to the II teams research I heard about them II team long after I stopped playing international cricket As a cricketer Id known and valued certain performances more than others but thus far there wasnt a system to recognise this All performances were considered equal even though they werent The idea in itself was revolutionary says Aakash on why he decided to get on board the projectHaving said that not everyone warmed to Jaideeps alternate ratecard The cricket intelligentsia ignored us even ridiculed us he recalls adding Also it does challenge a lot of notions people have held over many years some very fondlyheld onesAakash agrees This book quashes a few beliefs and puts weight in the hunches we had over the years Cricket observers would claim to know the difference between a good and great performance but thus far couldnt nail it with tangible evidence This book allows them that wonderful opportunityAmong the most groundbreaking findings that the Impact team came up with and one that Jaideep says would retell the sports history was that of former english cricketer Peter May 19511961 being the highest impact Test batsman ever after Bradman This changes the way you look at not just him but cricket in his era says JaideepAakash shares the sentiment That the highest impact as a batsman after Bradman is not Sachin Tendulkar Brian Lara or Ricky Ponting is the most stellar finding of this book the sports commentator thinksAccording to their research though May had a batting average of only 47 the fact that the greater portion of Mays runs were made in lowscoring matches and his best performances came when the team needed them the most makes his impact higher than everybody elses Further II analysis shows that May performed during a period that was considered crickets toughest decade It was also the lowest scoring decade in england post1920 Yet May averaged 60 in that decade and 57 through his career there in 39 TestsSimilarly the book points out how Tendulkar was the best support act in test not a leading act like Rahul Dravid Tendulkar did not rise to the occasion when the big moments came especially to decide the series like Dravid did Jaideep saysFrom 1990 to 2013 till Tendulkar retired there were 34 highlights for Indian cricket both home and away In these 34 Test series Rahul Dravid played the lead nine times and a support role seven times while Tendulkar played the leading role thrice and a supporting role 14 timesThough acceptance hasnt been easy to come by the two cricket enthusiasts are hopeful Itll be a travesty if this thoughtprocess isnt acknowledged appreciated and embraced for that would deny the fan an opportunity to understand and appreciate the game better says Aakash Jaideep is more pointblank It would be Neanderthal and embarrassing for a sport in the 21st century to be so backward in its thinking