The Tendulkar myth

You know what I really hate about Tendulkar scoring a century? The attitude of many of my fellow countrymen - who immediately go 'oh, so what, India will now surely lose' - like it is a siamese-twin type occurance. Tendulkar century - India lose - joined at the bloody hip!

What utter bullshit - I feel like screaming. Heck, I have, many times over the years.

Yesterday was no different. Our man scored a wonderful century not out while everyone around him in his team struggled. Remember, he was coming back from a 6 month+ layoff. India notched up 309, with Sachin getting nearly 50% of the runs. Trigger enough for the blue blooded Indian fan to all but hand over the winners cheque to the Windies - why? because Sachin scored a century, so surely, but surely, India will lose!!!

Just when the match was shaping up nicely with the Windies taking the battle right up to the Indians, the heavens opened up, giving Duckworth and Lewis a chance to weave their sheer magic and brilliance again - and India actually lost. Did I sense a whole bunch of guys going - there we go again, see see India lost, you know why - because Sachin scored a century!

Here's my point - what the f*@$ can Sachin do to prevent Mr. Rain God from making his presence felt? I realised, 10 minutes of spleen-venting later, that I was cutting short my time on Planet Earth. I therefore turned to Encyclopaedia Cricketica - i.e. Statsguru. Some fiddling around gave me the stat I was looking for. Here goes -

Tendulkar has scored 40 centuries in ODIs (yes, that many. No, no one is close. The next highest, if you must know, is a gentleman called Ganguly, at 22)
India have won 28 of those matches (yes, that means 70%. yes, a significant number)
One no result, so India have lost 11 of the 40 games (27.5% of the games - yes, a big enough number, but not as big when you relate it to context of the strength of the Indian team over the years and the sheer base on which we are operating - 40 games is a lot of games).

Granted, Lara, Ponting, Jayasuriya and even Ganguly have much better winning percentages, but they have all scored half the number of centuries notched up by Sachin. That is staggering, and the percentage is not vastly different (Lara 85%, Ganguly - 81%, Ponting - 80%, Sachin - 70%).

So please, Sachin haters, appreciate the man for what he is worth. India wins much more often when Sachin scores a century. Let him go for it - ok? Good for your health and mine.