My soul is in the sky. - William Shakespeare in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'
ON the field of dreams, they soar high in the sky, living an astonishing dream of their own. Breaking free from the mundane, shattering barriers, turning fantasy into reality.
When these two 'naturals' waltz in the middle, they embark on an exhilarating ride. Into the 'rarefied zone' of extraordinarily rich strokeplay.
Dazzling cricketers, similar yet different. One a simple genius, other a moody magician. On a thrilling yet demanding journey, scripting triumphs and enduring setbacks.
Speeding on a highway that has already taken them to greatness and beyond... into the realm of the legends. It's a high-octane drive and several more miles are bound to be gobbled up before they drift into the sunset.
When the two little 'heavyweights' hold the centrestage, they seldom hold back their punches. And bowlers and fielders are often left rubbing their eyes in sheer disbelief.
Well, they don't come any bigger than Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and Brian Charles Lara. Natural born winners, bringing with them freshness and freedom, Indian Sunshine and Calypso Rhythm.
Interestingly, their careers run along parallel lines. Tendulkar was not yet 16 when he walked into a Test arena for the first time, in Karachi, '89, standing up to the likes of Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis without flinching.
Lara made his Test debut, also in Pakistan, the very next year, Lahore being the venue. At 20, the Trinidadian was older than the Indian too.
And now both these batting superstars, winning duels and lighting up several faces along the way, have crossed a significant milestone - 7000 Test runs.
Tendulkar got to the figure during his magnificent 155 in the Bloemfontein Test against the South Africans, while Lara hurdled over the landmark on way to a glorious first innings double hundred in the recent third Test at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club ground.
There's an astonishing similarity in the number of Tests consumed by both the maestros before the landmark was reached. Tendulkar achieved the feat in 85 Tests, and Lara has done it in 83. However, Tendulkar had a healthier average at 57.85 at that time to Lara's 49.65.
Indeed, the right-handed Tendulkar, an affable man, is consistency personified, while southpaw Lara, the brooding superstar, has undergone phenomenal highs and abysmal lows.
Lara is impulsive in his ways - reflected in the number of sabbaticals he has taken from the game - and is prone to packing his bags for a holiday resort before a crucial series, if his mood is not right.
This is where Tendulkar scores over the Trinidadian. He is mentally rock-hard, breathes cricket and his hunger for runs is insatiable.
Something that boils down to discipline too. Learning his cricket from the strict Ramakant Achrekar, Tendulkar has always walked along the straight path, while Lara has a bit of a 'wild' streak in him.
There are times when the Caribbean does appear a batsman playing out of memory. However, when his mind and body are in harmony enabling him to rediscover his timing and range, Lara conjures the really 'huge' ones.
None bigger than his 375 at Antigua, '93, when he drove the English bowlers to despair. The highest individual innings in Test cricket, surpassing the mark of the incomparable Garry Sobers.
During such phases, he is more like a relentless run-making machine, a quality one at that. Coaxing the ball into the empty spaces with ridiculous ease.
Not surprisingly, Tendulkar has more centuries against his name (27, after his recent first innings effort against England in Ahmedabad, to Lara's 18, after the series against Sri Lanka) yet it took the Mumbai player 11 long years to register his first Test double hundred, at the cost of the Kiwis in Ahmedabad, 1999-2000. A tendency to essay too many lofted strokes after reaching the three-figure mark could be the reason for this relative failure.
On the positive side, Tendulkar has had very few dry runs, because of a technique that is close to perfection - lovely body balance, sure feet movement, an impeccable defence, a wide array of strokes off either foot against both pace and spin, and an in-born ability to cope with the challenges of different wickets and conditions.
This is also the reason why someone like Tendulkar, due to his technical purity, can notch up a string of useful scores even when he is not in the best of nicks. Lara invariably struggles in these situations.
When on song, no two shots off Tendulkar capture the imagination more than the straight drive and the pull. The left-arm is straight and high and he just 'times' the ball past the bowler, the cherry speeding to the fence.
And then the pull, when he picks the length of the delivery in a jiffy, sending the ball past the ropes in the arc between mid-wicket and square-leg in a flash, is a masterpiece. The key is how quickly Tendulkar gets into a position.
Remember the Chennai Test of '98, when Shane Warne zeroed in on the rough outside the leg-stump, only to find Tendulkar pulling the ball spinning sharply into him with disdain. That awesome hundred will surely be among Tendulkar's most cherished memories.
With his high-backlift and shuffling ways landing him in trouble on quite a few occasions, Lara is a notch below Tendulkar technically, but his astonishing reflexes coupled with hand-eye coordination make him very special.
It is indeed an exciting sight when Lara, either balanced on one leg or airborne, whips a delivery just short of a good length to the square-leg fence or drives exquisitely through the covers.
Using his feet delightfully, Lara handled the dangerous Muttiah Muralitharan with panache in the recent series, has dealt firmly with the tantalising leg-spin of Shane Warne, but rangy Aussie paceman Glenn McGrath has invariably won the confrontation with the West Indian, charging in from round the wicket, and harrying Lara with pace, bounce and away movement.
It was a different story though in the 1999 series at home against McGrath & co, when Lara, at his peak, rattled up three dazzling hundreds in three Tests, lifting Windies from the depths of despair to glory, rallying with the tail, two of the three-figure knocks being match-winning ones.
Tendulkar would love to play a major winning hand in a fourth innings chase. He was perilously close to achieving this in the Chennai Test of '99 against the varied Pakistan attack, battling against a painful back injury, that ultimately led to his downfall when India was just a whisker away from the target.
Coming to captaincy, both have encountered their moments of despair. Tendulkar, forever seeking perfection from his men, left an angry, frustrated man, finally relinquishing the top-job. In the case of Lara, his aloofness meant he could never communicate with his team-mates.
Both are masters of their own destiny, when they let the willow do the talking. Soaring high in the sky and breaking barriers... in the field of dreams.
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