This blog is about an experience- an experience shared by millions of people across continents. Particularly, Indians who watch and enjoy cricket.
An experience called Sachin.
I call this an experience because it has nothing to do with the person named Sachin Tendulkar, but because it is a collective consciousness that people across the world sense with a form, through a sport.
The spark for this post sparked while watching India surgically crush the life out of Australia while chasing a massive target of 359. Shikhar Dhavan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli played spectacular cricket- masterpieces in their careers. An inning which all three and maybe an entire generation will remember in their lifetime.
But. Something was lacking in this experience.
The experience has changed.
Now, our generation is experiencing cricket with a different perspective. One, where we watch cricket with our heads, not our hearts. One, where there is no "longing" to watch the Sachin manifesto unfold before our eyes. Before, when this manifesto existed, it didn't matter whether it brought with it a sense of victory or loss, as long as it was present. Sachin didn't even have to come to the crease for this experience to exist.
If you listen closely, you notice that this longing has eluded everyone including the commentators. For example even Shane Warne, a commentator for yesterday's match and one of the lucky few who experienced the dark side of the Sachin experience, was commenting at least two octaves below his level of excitement.
The gravitational pull exerted by this mysterious and elusive force was what bound a billion people to one another. This elusive force is theorized to be God's particle and hence Sachin may be cricket's ___.
