Stats don't lie: Sachin was a true match-winner

Soon after India’s innings loss to South Africa in 2000 in Bangalore, Sachin Tendulkar, the outgoing captain, was asked if Mohammad Azharuddin just wanted to make a point after he had thrown away his wicket immediately after hitting a sparkling century.

The doubts were raised as the Hyderabadi had not been picked for the preceding Mumbai Test under controversial circumstances.

Tendulkar felt the observation was a bit harsh. “Someone scores a century and if we still question his commitment, that’s not right,” he had remarked. The retiring batting great may well have been talking about himself.

Tendulkar, for long, carried this heavy cross around his neck for his perceived inability to finish off matches even as he stacked up century after century in either formats of the game (Tests and one-dayers).

Many examples are sighted to prove this ‘chink’ in his armoury. Be it his battling 136 in vain against Pakistan in the Chennai Test in 1999 or his 175 against Australia in the Hyderabad one-dayer as recently as 2009, there are many such instances in his prolific cricketing career -- 463 ODIs and 199 Tests to date. Mindboggling as his numbers are, Tendulkar, for most of his 24-year long career, has had to carry this unjust tag that he was not a match winner in the class of Brian Lara and that he invariably faltered at big moments.

Nothing, however, can be farther from truth. Just to take the one-dayers into consideration, Tendulkar has the most number of runs in tournament finals -- 1833.
He has scored six hundreds in the title clashes of multi-nation events and on all those occasions, India have ended up winning the title. So much for his lack of big-match temperament!

While Lara is a phenomenal batsman, it is worth having a glance at his performance on big stages. In his 17 final appearances, the West Indian great has just one century and two half-centuries. There was also an unfair perception that whenever Tendulkar scored a century, India went on to lose that match.

India did lose matches when Tendulkar brought up his three-figure score but only on 14 occasions out of 49 times he reached a hundred. India won on 33 occasions when he hit a century and he averaged 56.63 in 234 wins he was part of. Almost 2/3rd (11157) of his total ODI runs (18426) have come in winning causes.      
    
Before Tendulkar found able batting allies and match-winning bowlers, he was the lone ranger. With Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly developing into world-class batsmen, India began to churn out more number of wins in Tests. Among his contemporaries, Tendulkar was often pitted against Ricky Ponting and Lara. For the statistically inclined, of the three modern batting greats, Tendulkar has the best average (61.81) in Tests won. Lara is close behind with 61.02 followed by Ponting (59.46).

Only the Tasmanian batsman (30 tons) has more hundreds in a team’s win than Tendulkar (20). But that says something about the Australian team which was full of match-winners because Ponting was part of 108 Test wins. Interestingly, Dravid has a better average than these aforementioned three. The Bangalorean has scored at 65.78 in 56 of India’s wins he was part of but that’s a story for another day.

Tendulkar’s unbeaten 103 against England in the fourth innings at Chennai in 2008 was the defining moment of his illustrious career. He took the monkey off his back with that century in a chase of 387. But credits came in grudgingly. Critics panned Tendulkar saying that he could do it only because Virender Sehwag had set the stage with a breezy 83 off 68 balls. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t!