Aggregate-shmaggregate
Pardon me, but is anyone else out there getting sick and tired of this constant harping by the (I presume) India media contingent about Tendulkar overhauling Lara’s record? And to make things worse, this questioning is not being directed at Tendulkar but just about everyone else: Kumble, Dravid and good Lord, to top it all off, the Sri Lankan captain, Jayawardene (all of whom, poor chaps, can only provide the cliched answers that one would most expect; thus precious time is wasted again in the meetings with the press). The same media, of course, will be the one that will then carry stories about players selfishly playing for records if the result of a game doesn’t quite pan out to their (the press') satisfaction. Who are these dorks? ( rhetorical question alert!)
PS: And in all honesty, the run aggregate record has I think, stopped being such a big deal. The lead has changed hands several times and it’s been fairly clear who the next serious contender is going to be (Ponting after Tendulkar, for instance, is the safe-as-houses bet). The Sobers-Boycott-Gavaskar handoff was sort of riveting back then, but his particular chase has lost its urgency. I’m more interested in seeing how India do against the Mendis-Murali combine in Sri Lanka.
PS: And in all honesty, the run aggregate record has I think, stopped being such a big deal. The lead has changed hands several times and it’s been fairly clear who the next serious contender is going to be (Ponting after Tendulkar, for instance, is the safe-as-houses bet). The Sobers-Boycott-Gavaskar handoff was sort of riveting back then, but his particular chase has lost its urgency. I’m more interested in seeing how India do against the Mendis-Murali combine in Sri Lanka.
posted by Samir Chopra at 10:48 AM
6 Comments:
My take on this is even the press is bought out by several brands that represent the players.
Thus making them demi gods and alternatively evil at times is a well planned strategy to affect the brand equity.
About the runs-aggregate record, I have a feeling that whomsoever wins the battle among the current set of contenders (Sachin, Ponting, who else?) would keep the record for a long time. I expect the number of tests played in an year to also suffer significantly (in addition to ODIs) from 20-20 onslaught in coming years. I guess other readers will have different opinions.
PA: I wouldn't entirely discount it, given how strange the Indian media has become.
Mukul: I think you are right; I can't see any other contender on the horizon. Dravid is on par with Ponting for now, but I have a feeling Ponting will finish ahead of him. After that there is big gap between them and Hayden.
I thought Ajantha Mendis was overtaking Lara's record, my mistake.
Its a record and it involved Sachin, the media will go gaga over it... u cant expect anything else..
I think Dravid said it best when he said I hope Sachin gets the record and he gets it in the 1st test in the 1st innings on the 1st day itself..
More than sachin getting it, looks like Dravid wants all the hype to be over and done with, much like you Samir :-)
JRod: I'd have liked to have seen Mendis against Lara for sure.
Q: Not a bad way to clean things up and move on!
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