The revered Don and the endearing Sachin

It is hard to imagine that it will soon be a decade-and-a-half since Sir Donald Bradman passed away. Interestingly, Ricky Ponting has recently stated that Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest batsman after The Don:   

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/top-stories/Sachin-Tendulkar-is-the-greatest-after-Don-Bradman-Ponting/articleshow/51058961.cms

I had written much the same thing in November 2009, four years before Tendulkar retired:

http://indravikramsingh.blogspot.in/2009/11/after-bradman-its-got-to-be-tendulkar.html

Bradman himself had famously said that he thought Tendulkar’s batting resembled his own.

This debate will rage as long as the game is played. New greats will emerge, many more records will be broken, but will there be a more revered cricketer than Bradman, or a more loved one than Tendulkar? Not likely.

The eyes of cricket fans will remain transfixed at two lofty peaks, a Test average of 100, and a hundred centuries in international cricket, until new superstars arrive to scale such dizzy heights again.

(Indra Vikram Singh is author of the book ‘Don’s Century’, ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0, which is a biography of Sir Donald Bradman and a panorama of batting from the 1860s till present times).