Sachin Tendulkar’s long term fan and former teammate Sanjay Manjrekar is sure trying hard to provoke him out of his recent form slump. In a recent article at Indiatimes.com Sanjay questions the state of Sachin’s mind. Comparing Sachin with the likes of Lara and Inzamam ul Haq, Sanjay states that Sachin seems to be too cautious and not taking enough risks when not at full fitness. Former players have predictably sprung up in defence of Sachin Tendulkar over Manjrekar’s remarks about  the batting maestro’s fear of failure. But I don’t think there is a lot of malice behind Sanjay’s remarks. Maybe they represent the frustration of a fan watching Sachin fumble through the last 3-4 years, falling prey to bowlers he would have massacred in his heydays.

Anyway all this talk has made me look up some of Sachin’s recent career statistics again. For my analysis I filtered out the initial period till 2002 when he was in the top 5 Test batting rankings consistently. I think that’s fair since his ICC test ranking peaked at 898 points against Zimbabwe in 2002 home series. In the 40 test matches since then his batting averages have dipped to 47.66 and if you remove the scores against Bangladesh it moderates further to 43.45 (details here). He has won only 2 Man of the Match awards in this period and no Man of the series awards (details here). A more telling statistics is his current test batting ranking of 21 and his tally of 644 points the lowest since 1993. This is the only time Sachin has dropped out of the top twenty batsmen rankings! Maybe some of it could be explained by his frequent absence from the team recently but his form hasn’t shown any signs of improving in those numerous comebacks. In fact in stock market parlance his rankings graph looks like a big rounded top breaking down. Guess for now Ricky Ponting has firmly taken over the mantle of the best batsman in the world. But still it would be nice to see Sachin show some fire and play freely with aggression like before. I’d rather see him making one brilliant 100 and several failures than struggle through painstaking 50’s to maintain his Test averages.

I do like to follow new upcoming players in most sports. Especially so in cricket, maybe since it’s easier to follow obscure young players coming through. Guess I get a kick out of being witness to the transformation that typically takes place by the time a talented player finally makes the cut in an international side. Of course this process of following hopefuls is fraught with the frustration of seeing talent burn out or being frittered away. I remember having high hopes from Ambati Raidu to make it in the Test arena after seeing him bat in the under-19’s. But after a bright start he has faded away after bowlers in our domestic leagues sorted out his technical weaknesses.

Anyway nowadays I’m keenly following the progress made by Piyush Chawla(17 yrs) a classical leg spinner and Rohit Sharma(19 yrs) a wristy batsman who bats a bit like VVS Laksman. I first noticed Piyush in the under 19 world cup while Rohit Sharma made an impression in the India A games against Pakistan A in Dubai earlier this year. Piyush is ahead as far as current progress goes having played 1 Test and some one dayers. He also helped UP win the Ranji Trophy this year. Rohit has only played in under 19’s and some India A games so far prior to the ongoing India A tour in Australia. So far they seem to be doing well in Australian conditions. Piyush took 7 wickets in this weeks victory against New Zealand A while Rohit scored a 50.