The transition of Greatness! Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli

Fandom is a fickle thing in sport. Especially in India. One day you are the savior of the world, and one bad performance later, they are calling for your blood. But some players manage to transcend the vagaries of fans by the sheer weight of their genius. They become living legends, revered and even worshiped. Their faults are forgotten, their inconsistencies invisible. An entire generation looks up to them as a template of genius. Like Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

But athletes retire. And new generations grow up. And new geniuses turn up to usurp their mantle. They show the new generation a new level of performance, more in tune with their attitudes and aspirations. They overcome the fickleness which knows no generation and by weight of ability and attitude, put their hand up to be considered a legend. Like Virat Kohli.

Comparisons will naturally arise. But objectivity is close to impossible to compare careers spanning separate decades, even with the huge amount of statistical data available. Those who have experienced the magic of Tendulkar in the 90s and 00s will be hard pressed to accept Kohli in the same light. Those who have grown up watching a fading Tendulkar replaced by the arrogance of youth in Kohli are wondering what the fuss about Tendulkar is all about.

The similarities are many, similarities shared by great players spanning the nature of sport or the time they played in. Both are born talented, have honed their skill to maximum by sheer hard work and discipline, and have the temperament to perform independent of pressure and situation. While Tendulkar along with Lara, Ponting and Gilchrist bridged the gap between Tests and ODIs with classic stroke-making, Kohli has seamlessly molded himself into a Test, ODI and T20 machine. Kohli, ABD, Smith, Williamson etc. represent the new generation of powering up and switching gears at will.

Tendulkar might not be remembered for finishing off matches scoring 10-12 runs an over regularly, for scoring 50s off 25 balls and hitting sixes at will but then, very few of his peers will be. That was just not the pace at which cricket was played in his time. A run a ball innings was good enough to win most games and doing so consistently was excellence. Flip the coin and Kohli and his peers will not be remembered for dominating a Donald-Pollock on a bouncy Durban pitch or a Gough-Caddick on a swinging Lords morning. Or a Shane Warne turning it square on the fourth day at Eden gardens. Domination then was hitting the ball on the middle of a straight bat with the bowlers spitting fire.

Both are match winners in their own right. Both have won matches single handedly for the team. While Kohli has done it under extreme pressure when the rest have failed him, Tendulkar, by the sheer weight of his ability has carried the pressure of the whole team every time he goes out to bat. 5 wickets down in a crunch game, Kohli will take the team home, but come a crunch game, reading Tendulkar’s name on the team sheet has already taken the pressure off the other batsmen. The pressure on Kohli is to finish the innings, Tendulkar carried the pressure of creating the innings for two decades. Kohli revels in the pressure, it focusses him and perks him up while Tendulkar just absorbed it within him all the time, barely giving it any notice.

Externally they are chalk and cheese. Tendulkar the perennial introvert while Kohli is the poster boy of aggression and in your face attitude. A Rolls Royce and a Ferrari. But both ensure that there is nothing that comes in the way of performance. While Kohli can bring his concentration to Yogic levels while batting, Sachin with the bat could be as aggressive as anybody. Both in their own style.

Where Tendulkar today is ahead is only in the sheer years of performance he has delivered. Kohli has the opportunity to surpass him, and has shown more than enough ability to do so. But then the new generation has never been about looking too far in the future. At the here and now, Kohli is the new great. The older great man though, has not relinquished his title. Merely allotted his successor. At least not until those who witnessed his brilliance wither and die away.