After long years of elite sport,
there are few bits of an athlete’s body that function as well as they once did.
There is no part that can be fixed entirely anymore, no brake shoes to replace,
no coolant to refill. Perhaps the most
remarkable aspect of Sachin Tendulkar’s 24-year-long career, thus, is not that
he merely had the desire to carry on for so long but that he took care of
himself well enough to be able to do so.“It is no coincidence that he has
actually bounced back really well from all the major injury setbacks,” says
John Gloster, the Indian team’s physiotherapist from early 2005 through 2008.“Sachin
just knuckled down and took on board every little thing the physio and the
doctor told him. He was very committed to his rehab. He always saw the big
picture.”
For the first half of his career,
Tendulkar was barely bothered by injury. It was 12 years before he missed his
first Test match, and that from an external injury — a broken toe in Zimbabwe
in 2001. At that stage, Tendulkar was the single pillar that propped India’s
batting up, match after match, series after series. At the 2003 World Cup — his
delightful battering of Shoaib Akhtar and Wasim Akram an abiding memory —
Tendulkar finished top-scorer; it was only later he would reveal the severity
of his finger injury. Injections didn’t help; at one point, he couldn’t hold a
tea cup in his left hand, he said.In the two years after August 2004, when
tennis elbow — his most serious injury — and a shoulder injury afflicted him,
Tendulkar averaged 41 (as opposed to a career figure of 57) in Tests and 32
(against 45) in ODIs. It led to much despair.
His manner of run-making had
changed, people complained; the flat-batted shots, the counter-attacking of
fast bowlers had become a rare commodity, they pointed out. But this was not so
much from specific injuries as the evolving nature of his role in the team and
age in general.“From a physical perspective, there were no limitations because
of his injury,” Gloster, physio when Tendulkar was operated on in 2005 and
2006, clarifies.“In terms of technique or changing his game, there were no
limitations at all. In fact we even kept up the rehab long enough so that he
could use the heavy bat he always used.”Tendulkar tailored his game to make the
most efficient use of a body that demanded increasing attention.As the years
ticked by, Tendulkar’s career, which some had written off, found a second wind.
Ramji Srinivasan, whom Tendulkar consulted in 2006, and who was a physical
trainer with the Indian team until recently, says: “Sachin was always aware of
the gravity of the situation. He wanted to understand every little thing about
his condition and there was no room for error. Till date, he continues to do
loads of specialized exercises.”
Javagal Srinath, his India
teammate for long, appreciates as well as anyone the enormity of Tendulkar’s
physical achievement. “I don’t think any cricketer has managed his injuries the
way Sachin has,” Srinath says.“More than the body, it is about the mind,” he
notes, “because age itself is an injury.”
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