For those who think he is not the greatest - 1

Ok, here's 4,961,280th article about him. Surely in cricket crazy country like us, the only authority everyone possesses and exercises to the fullest is the advice to our cricketers. Remember the Reliance mobile ad about advices "Ohh, Square cut maarna chahiye tha yaar !!!" ? I am no different than them, so being a responsible citizen (!) and a keen cricket follower( in fact cricket being theonly sport I can understand), I am jumping into the bandwagon of he-is versus he-is-not debate.Rather than going into how his stats prove he-is-the-best, it will be better to analyse the often said negative things against him and then proving them wrong, point by point( of course we'll need stats then). Often people criticize him on the basis of one or more of following points.
1. He is not a match winner.
2. He has won very few tournaments for India/He doesn't click in the final/crucial matches.
3. He is not a team player/He is a selfish cricketer/He is not a good leader.
4. He plays cricket to earn money, not to win matches. Thats why he doesnt play T20 but plays IPL..
5. Ponting/Flintoff/Peterson/Dhoni/Lara/Gibbs/Jaysuriya and the lot are better cricketers than him (and they try to prove this using the statistics, conveniently ignoring Sachin's stats).

He is not a match winner/He hasn't won India many tournaments/He doesnt click in the crucial matches:

45 ODI centuries, 33 resulting in winning cause. Yes he is not a match winner. After scoring 175 runs and single handedly bringing India to a thrilling win, he systematically and un-match-winneristically threw away his wicket. Had the other batsmean showed the courage of staying on for some more time on the crease, it could have been a different picture. Forget about the tailenders, if our top batting order had added even 1 run each to their paltry scores, we could have won the match. Criticizing him for not being able to finish that match is akin to that joke where a dog goes to a supermarket, buys groceries, pays the bill and comes back home only to be beaten by his owner for forgetting to take the door keys third time in the week. No matter how high he scores, critics will always find out some flaw or the other. He also supposedly failed to perform in the world up final 2003, and that we lost the cup because of that. Again the same dog joke applies. The only person because of whom we reached the finals was him, and his failure in the final match cost us the world cup ? How absurd is that ? Why couldn't a single batsman show the ability to stick to the wicket and give at least a fight (which Sehwag did by the way, but it was too late then) ? Same is true for the semifinal of 1996 World cup too. Harakiri is the only word that can best be used to describe what happened after he got out.
Cricket, at the very least, is definitely the game of 2 people, the batsman and the non striker. When people give references of how Ponting or Gilchrist or jaysuriya, single handedly won matches for their countries, they often forget the support provided to them by their partner at non-striker's end. Only in Sachin's case the person at non-striker's end is literally non striking. Remember the gem of an inning played by Ponting in World Cup 2003 final ( 140*). Throughout the knock he was supported by Damien Martin (88*) who came to the crease almost at the same time as Ponting, but chose to let Ponting do all the attacking. Or take the case of historic match between Aus and SA of the highest run chase. Ponting did score a classic 164, but not without the support of Katich(79) and Hussey(81 in 51) to get Aus to 434/4. In same match, when Gibbs outscored Ponting by scoring 175(111 balls), Graeme Smith scored 90 in 55 to give their team a headstart. Even Boucher scored a fifty to take the game away from Aus. Has that ever happened to Sachin ? definitely not when we are chasing big totals. Not when he scores 175, not when he scores 143 in Sharjah( we lost the match after he was given LBW wrongly), not when he scores 141 vs Pak (http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64882.html), and definitely not when he scores 136 in Chennai. Still we blame you-know-who.
Talk about Jaysuriya winning more matches for SL. True, he took SL till the semifinals of the world cup. But he failed in both the semis and finals. Despite this, SL won because Aravind Desilva played well in both the matches. In our case, when Sachin fails, we commit harakiri. The rare occasions when Sachin failed and still we won are far and few( Natwest series final and Dhoni's 183 knock against SL being few of them).
This was about his supposed failures. In the last few tournaments which India has managed to win, Sachin has played well in almost all of them. In the Triseries final in Aus, he scored 117 and 91 in the finals. In Compaq cup final, he scored a century to beat SL. Or the 166 in 131 balls against NZ. If these are not match winning knocks, then what are ?

He is not good team leader/ He is not a good team player/ He is a selfish cricketer:

Ok, his captaicy stint has been disastrous, and continues in IPL too. But how does captaincy record can hamper one's reputation as a great batsman? Lara, Jaysuriya, Flintoff and Peterson ( people with whom he is often compared with) have all been bad captains. In fact this is the only point where Ponting scores ahead of Sachin. But the point is, Sachin knew his limitations. He knew captaincy was not his cup of tea and resigned himself without being forced. He knew it was affecting both the team and his own batting too. He wanted to do what he can do best - Batting. What was so selfish in that ?
Yes he is not a good team player. Thats why he came back within 4 days after his father expired to play for 'himself' in the 1999 world cup. So what the century was against a minnows team, isn't the fact important that he could have easily excused himself from the rest of tournament without being questioned about it ever ?
People call him selfish because he didnt pay tax on the Ferrari. Now this one is really funny. Calling him a selfish cricketer just beause he allegedly applied for tax waiver for the Ferrari or that he wanted some plot in Bandra for concessional rates is like calling Amitabh is pathetic actor because he is involved in land fraud !! Why and how what happens outside the cricket field affects his genius inside the field ?
Ok, even if he becomes a not-so-great or li'l-selfish cricketer, then by applying the same standards, what do we make of Ponting ? Remember how he and his men pushed BCCI chief Sharad Pawar after winning the Champions Trophy ? Ponting has often been called as an arrogant cricketer. And Aussies are without doubt sledging kings, with their captain leading the way. Some of the other so called greats like Jaysuriya, Peterson or Flintoff have often been embroiled with controversies because of their behaviour within and outside the field. Compared to them Sachin is a saint, letting only his bat do all the talking. In fact after his comments about mumbai, he should be given some prize about national integration.

To be continued...