Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The all-time great

”The English team has plumbed new depths, that in comparison, Mariana Trench looks like a puddle” reported the London edition of a newspaper, when England lost a match recently to the West Indies team.

Meanwhile, Indian newspapers have been lavishing praise on the Indian team that it would appear that the team has scaled such new heights as to make Mount Everest look like a small stool to step on to. “Is this the greatest team ever?” screams one headline. “Is Dhoni the best captain ever?” asks another.

“Tendulkar is the greatest batsman ever, even better than Bradman was ever was”, Richard Hadlee is quoted as saying. Tendulkar, of course, is mighty kicked to hear that.

(Bradman, when he was asked during a match that he was watching in the 1980s, how much he would have scored had he batted in that match, is supposed to have replied, “ Well, about fifty or sixty runs, I guess. After all, I am eighty years old now”.)

Comparing players/teams of different eras is a favourite media pastime, always with the preface that comparing players/teams of different eras is incorrect.

But, we all love to indulge in this exercise, don’t we?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is your greatest post ever.
-Naveen