Tendulkar is no god. Kapil Dev is bang on

In India, you don't mess with the gods, neither do you doubt the power of personalities, whom we, the people, have accorded traits of "godliness". We are a god-fearing lot. Surely, you wouldn't blame us for it! For us, religion resides in the realm of the "sacred", and we tolerate no sacrilege. In a socio-cultural setting that often has god depicted in human form - as Lord Rama, or Lord Krishna - the lines of distinction between man and god gets blurred all too easily.

Kapil Dev, one of the great cricket icons of the country himself, perhaps was oblivious to this fact. On Thursday, in a bout of indiscretion, Kapil chose to point out the "flaws" of India's "cricket god" Sachin Tendulkar. How dare he! Hasn't he heard the oft-repeated saying that if cricket is religion, Tendulkar is the presiding deity?

Hasn't he seen a hundred banners proclaiming this from the stands at cricket stadia? Cricket is indeed a "religion" in India; it can bind people as religious beliefs would; it informs our collective consciousness; it is our national obsession and almost an article of faith. And Sachin Tendulkar is its biggest icon. He is special and "sacred". He is beyond scrutiny.

Thus when the unsuspecting Kapil Dev spoke against the great master (or master-blaster), the army of Tendulkar admirers, from common fans to ex-cricketers and journalists, pounced upon him, castigating him for his comments.

"Gods" are infallible. Didn't Kapil know that?

Immediately, books of cricket statistics started to be hurled at Kapil, drowning him under the weight of Tendulkar's colossal cricket records. Nearly 35,000 international runs, 100 international centuries, most number of centuries and half-centuries in both Tests and ODIs, a staggering 24 years of international cricket... Surely the master didn't need a certificate from Kapil. Was this an effort by Kapil to get even with Tendulkar, as the latter had said sometime back that he was "disappointed" with Kapil Dev's coaching?

In an instant, people forgot that Kapil was an icon in his own rights and one of the greatest all-rounders the game has ever witnessed and also the captian who led India to its first ever World Cup crown in 1983 - a victory that completely changed the way cricket would be seen in India, and without which, perhaps the game wouldn't have found such a favour with the people that Tendulkar could be raised to cult status.

Expectedly, there were angry outbursts on Twitter, as these tweets prove:

Problem with Kapil Dev is that he speaks his heart out without taking time,place and people in mind.Most of the time he is wrong,even now.

— Siddharth Chhaya (@siddtalks) October 30, 2015

34,000+ Intl runs. 25 years on National duty. 200 test matches, 100 hundreds & Kapil Dev says Sachin did not do 'justice to his talent'.WTF.

— $ir $ri $ri Magal (@jhunjhunwala) October 29, 2015

Kapil Dev thinks - If Sachin had played like Sehwag, he would have been even more successful. Very easy to say sir...Wouldn't God know best?

— Manak Gupta (@manakgupta) October 29, 2015

Dear kapil dev, each player has his own style! Sachin can't play like sehwag, sehwag can't play like Sachin & no one can play like Dravid!

— Doctor Modi (@iamthemaulik) October 29, 2015

Let's examine what Kapil said and see if we can put up a defence for the legendary all-rounder. Kapil felt that Tendulkar "didn't do justice to his talent", but what perhaps created the greatest controversy was his statement that Tendulkar "did not know how to make double hundreds, triple hundreds and 400, though he had the ability to scale such peaks".

Here, what was missed by the hyperactive Tendulkar supporters and admirers was that Kapil's words may not have actually been jibes at Tendulkar, though it is true that Kapil could have chosen his words better.

It is a bit difficult to imagine that a batsman of Tendulkar's class, ability and pedigree didn't know how to convert his many hundreds into bigger scores, but one can't deny the fact that in 200 Tests, Tendulkar could not score even a 250, let alone a triple century.

Surely, you expect a batsman who had been compared with Sir Donald Bradman, by none other than the Australian great himself, to score more double hundreds than the six he has, especially when his contemporaries Kumar Sangakkara and Brian Lara scored many more. Sir Don, whom Tendulkar had been likened to has double the number of double centuries Tendulkar has in Tests. Sir Don also has two triple hundreds to his name, and so has Tendulkar's contemporaries Brian Lara, Chris Gayle and his good friend and former teammate Virender Sehwag.

Tendulkar was certainly not a lesser batsman than any of his contemporaries. In fact, he has been widely regarded as the greatest of his generation and next only to Sir Don. True as it may be, was a Test triple hundred too big an ask for him?

Without a doubt, Tendulkar had the technique, but did he have the patience and the temperament to convert a big score into a really big one? Wasn't it a fact that often he would be a victim of soft dismissals after getting to a milestone?

According to Kapil, Tendulkar "was there to get his hundred and that's it". Did Tendulkar's appetite suddenly die after he got to a hundred? When a player of such calibre takes almost ten years since his debut to score his first Test double century, you know there is something amiss.

For sometime, Tendulkar was being compared to Brian Lara, though in course of time, he raced past Lara, if anything, in terms of the sheer number of runs scored. But could Tendulkar have played a gruelling 377-ball 120 to save a Test match like Lara (versus India at St Lucia in 2006)? It is this enormous patience that also helped Lara score a jaw-dropping 400 in a Test match or an even more surreal 501 in a first class match. Did Tendulkar, for all his centuries lack that patience - a very important ingredient of batting in Tests?

To say Tendulkar did not do justice to his talent may be a stretch, but it's a fact that he was capable of even bigger achievements with his sea of talent. That is what Kapil may have meant and if that was indeed the case, it was a recognition of Tendulkar's immense abilities.

Kapil knows very well the monumental feats that Tendulkar has achieved in his career. To still say that Tendulkar could have achieved more is paying a glowing compliment which was misconstrued as a barb. Also in any case, even if Kapil would not have thought too highly of Tendulkar as a cricketer, he is entitled to his opinion and shouldn't have been pilloried as he was.

A healthy debate is always welcome and if one can provide reasons for his thesis, there will be enough reason to listen. Indeed, Tendulkar is also human and every human has his infirmities. Tendulkar also had them. We can't muzzle a voice for pointing them out.

Kapil may have a point when he said Tendulkar wasn't as "ruthless" as the West Indian legend Vivian Richards. Tendulkar did come across as being a bit too circumspect with his stroke-making, especially in the later part of his career.

However, I do not subscribe to Kapil's view that Tendulkar should have played more like Sehwag, per se, to be (even) more successful. Every batsman has his own way of playing. We all know Sehwag wasn't exactly a batting technician like Rahul Dravid, and his footwork at the crease was virtually non-existent. He relied more on his incredible hand-eye coordination and balance to score those tonnes of runs. Tendulkar's technique, however, was pretty speckless. Strangely enough, neither Dravid, nor Tendulkar has a Test triple century to his name, while Sehwag has four double and two triple centuries. 

What Kapil might have meant by the Sehwag example was that Tendulkar should have played more freely and without inhibitions (at least in the later part of his career), as Sehwag did.

The reaction to Kapil's statements on Tendulkar shows how we are growing increasingly intolerant to a contrarian view, conveniently forgetting that every view has a right to get expressed and debated upon. We are simply not ready to accept a challenge to what we hold to be the gospel truth.

Why didn't we raise our voices when Tendulkar questioned Kapil's coaching abilities? If Kapil "disappointed" as a coach, Tendulkar didn't exactly cover himself in glory as the captain of the Indian team. Kapil had the courage to be straightforward with his views on Tendulkar, at the cost of his popularity, and his views were not totally without merit. Let's give Kapil credit as he certainly deserves some.