Sachin Tendulkar
against Shane Warne. It is the
cricketing confrontation of the age, a battle between a brilliant
and defiant batsman determined to dominate and a supremely gifted
bowler no less committed to emerging triumphant. Not since Viv
Richards and Dennis Lillee met in proud conflict has cricket seen
anything to match it.
At first sight it is a struggle between opposites, brain against brawn, reason against rudeness. Sweet curry against raw prawn, all the cliches promoters are so fond of. Closer inspection reveals that the gladiators have much in common. They have followed different paths, that is all. But they have reached the same mastery, superb craftsmen at the height of their respective powers. They are a match for each other.
The air is thick with anticipation. Mumbai was a mere scuffle, Test cricket is different. Battle has not yet been joined. How will they begin? Will they circle each other, prowling like boxers in a ring? Or will they go at each other like fighting cocks? And how will it end? It adds to the tension that the pair has met only once before in serious combat, and that too a long time ago. They haven't been avoiding each other. They aren't prima donnas but professionals who go where their job takes them. Alas, India and Australia seldom meet, a matter of regret for which various explanations, some dark and some light, have been advanced.
Of course, to these fellows cricket is more than a job; it is the moment they truly come alive. As much could be told about Tendulkar from the first time he appeared in high company, a stripling, yet old in his ways. His strokes flowed so that it came as a surprise, and a reminder, when occasionally he lashed out with feverishness of youth. Otherwise, his every move told of his breeding.
Warne is a different case because he looks like a wrestler and has a grin at once complacent and mischievous. Sophistication is hidden away and the skill is easily missed. He seems to have wandered in from the beach which, in his early incarnations, was more or less the case. He seems too rudimentary, too provocative to possess such a gift. He is a fellow easily underestimated. Warne manages to be a rough and ready Australian and a supreme technician. He is also as fierce a competitor as Tendulkar and those smiles a part of his effect.
By accident or design, Warne is a master of psychology. Batsmen want to maul him, eat him, kill him, anything to wipe that irritating smile off his face, anything to destroy his myth and his magic. Invariably they fail because they are playing the man and the ball. Moreover, Warne understands his craft every bit as much as the Indian. Actually "understand" isn't strong enough. Warne studied his craft, explored its limits, and decided it was not for him. The balls that removed Mike Gatting in Manchester, Shivnarine Chanderpaul in Sydney and Alec Stewart in Brisbane were among the deadliest of the decade.
Before Warne had come the age of pace. He has since restored wit and bewilderment to a game that had become prosaic. No one was talking about leg spinners a few years ago, not in the western world anyway. No one was talking about flippers either. They were dead and cremated. No one thought it possible to spin a ball a yard and do it in a Test match and first ball. No one thought it possible to bowl batsmen between their legs and behind the legs. Not in the respectable world of Test cricket. Warne has done it all. He is not the supreme exponent of his art but a new definition of it.
But as he proved once again in Mumbai last week, Tendulkar is the supreme expression of modern batting with its mixture of aggression and meticulous defence, a combination meeting the demands of the age. Whenever he is able to concentrate his energies entirely on his batting, he remains the greatest player of his age. Of course, it is not so easy in India, with its endless distractions and political disputes. Nevertheless, he is a purist at heart, and proved as much against the Australians all those years ago with two innings that are still regarded as the finest played in Australia in the 1990s.
Tendulkar's hundreds in Sydney and Perth had an authority that belied his years. And a range, power and certainty of stroke that were unforgettable. Perhaps the Perth effort was the greater because it was played on a hard and bouncy pitch of a sort seldom encountered on Indian soil. Teammates were nonplussed but the teenager cut and drove as if he'd been batting on such pitches all his life. This was the true Tendulkar, the player who will continue to prosper because he has the intelligence to remove himself from the enormous pressures around him and the belittling deeds of lesser men.
Now at last, the two warriors collide. In truth it is not so much battle renewed as battle begun. Warne was there in Sydney six years ago but was given a fearful pasting. Worn down by Ravi Shastri, he was dispatched by Tendulkar. It was an uneven contest. Although green in years, Tendulkar was already an accomplished and battle-hardened cricketer, whereas the leg spinner was still pursuing his flights of fancy. Warne had not taken many wickets in club cricket, let alone for Victoria, and had been hurried on to the big stage by selectors pining for a wrist spinner. He had a stuttering run and little variety or accuracy. He took Shastri's wicket, caught on the boundary, and it remains the only Indian in Warne's collection. Not for long. That time when Tendulkar manhandled Warne, it was like a tiger feasting on a wild boar. Now, they are both tigers.
Tendulkar is a thinking cricketer and a man in charge of his emotions. He's been studying Warne and will have worked out a strategy. If Mumbai was anything to go by, he will attack. That is his nature. But he will do so with calculation rather than bravado. Warne knows that Tendulkar is his match in every way. In mind and body. But he also knows that he has his full repertoire at his disposal this time and much less pressure on him in the land where Tendulkar is set so high. Warne will be ravenous too. Sometimes, boredom is his enemy, but he will stay awake in India because it remains a land and a team that he has not conquered.
Lots of other superb cricketers will play in this series but it is Tendulkar versus Warne that holds our interest. A contest that will blend the high drama of the boxing ring with the subtle manoeuvring of the chess board.