Sachin Tendulkar at the receiving end

This was one last chance for Sachin Tendulkar to showcase his talent as a captain and would have been great when he was captaining a side where he not only was born and bought up but also learnt how to play cricket. But, when he once again lost in the finals of the IPL, he would be considered as one of the worst captains India has ever seen though that is not really the case. Sachin was successful in winning 10 out of the 14 13 games he featured in, if the encounter against the Kolkata Knight Riders is omitted from the list in this year's IPL.

Sachin Tendulkar was responsible for 5 of the 10 wins which constitute 50% of the wins that the Mumbai Indians had and then for a team with just one international batsman to make it to the top of the table is really something great. However, his dropping of Sanath Jayasuriya would always go down as a bad or ugly decision as far as critics go. Jayasuriya would have played a role as a hard hitting batsmen who would have taken the number of international batsmen in the side to two. Added to that would have been is left arm orthodox which is better than someone like Kieron Pollard's medium fast.

Any captain who is set to face the team to which he has lost earlier and that too in the knock out stages of the tournament is indeed unlucky. And, Sachin Tendulkar is one such unlucky chap and more so when he lost in front of his own people. The Mumbai Indians faced the RCB in the semis and the Chennai Superkings in the finals, both of whom had beaten them earlier in the league stages. I remember the Pakistan team in the 2^nd world T20 last year where it faced Sri Lanka against whom they had suffered a defeat in the super eights but won the finals convincingly.

Sachin Tendulkar was the captain of the Titan cup in 1996 which India won after beating a South African team which until then had remained unbeaten in the tournament. South Africa had won three games each against India & Australia before losing to India in the finals. Similarly, Sachin Tendulkar was a part and the architect of the Indian team that beat Australia in the Sharjah cup in 1998 after Australia had won all of its league stage games against the Kiwis and India. Though Sachin Tendulkar's Mumbai Indians didn't win all the matches in the league stage, they were the table toppers and losing out in the finals really hurts not only Sachin Tendulkar and Mumbai but also to all cricket fans.

Unlike our prediction, the winning team this time neither had a player wearing the Purple cap not the orange cap. Apologies for that.

Bad scheduling of the IPL finals

The finals of this year's Indian Premier League was scheduled as though the authorities involved had previously known that the Sachin Tendulkar led Mumbai Indians would surely make it to the finals this time, if the scheduling of the finals is seen which is held at Mumbai from where Sachin Tendulkar hails. Relax! this has got nothing to do with match fixing and related other stuff. However, when the other side of the coin in given a close look at, it is a bad scheduling when the finals should have been held on Saturday which would have coincided with Sachin Tendulkar's 37^th birthday.

People still remember the way Sachin Tendulkar smashed all the Aussie bowlers that included the likes of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath on this day exactly 12 years ago when he celebrated his 25^th birthday. That was the finals of the tri nation tournament in which Australia had never lost a single ODI after winning both the games against India and New Zealand at Sharjah. Of course, India would have won that game prior to the finals had there been no interruption by dust which reduced the required target by just 10 runs and the number of balls by 24.

Now, there could have been yet another occasion had the IPL authorities scheduled the finals of the tournament today rather than on Sunday. Well, I'm aware of the fact that there is the stand off for the third place to be held between Deccan Chargers and the Royal Challengers Bangalore that will decide the team that will make it to the champions league T20 tournament. But, even that could have been settled by having the match played on Sunday or on Friday. It shouldn't matter in case the Deccan Chargers would be playing games back to back with the 2nd semi finals held on Thursday.

However, coming to Sachin Tendulkar's 37^th birthday, I would like to bring it to everyone's notice that Sachin Tendulkar is the only batsman in the history of the game to have at present scored more number of centuries in both forms of the game which is more than his age. This record may not last for long with his age bound to go on as long as the earth exists and the number of hundreds scored to be terminated one fine day when he retires. And with Sachin Tendulkar confirming his presence in the upcoming world cup in 2011 due in the sub continent minus Pakistan, he is likely to become the 2^nd player after Pakistan's Javed Miandad to play in 6 world cups.