Heroes

Imola '06 - MS in an inferior car blocks young Alonso for the whole damn race and proceeds to win it. 85th race win for the ace. I started following F1 when Ferrari was a lousy car and struggled to beat its rivals and was only competetive cause of Schumi's skills. It was fun watching him battle and it was the most logical conclusion for me to be a Schumi and Ferrari fan and will them to win all the time. They did. They won a lot. Till Last year. They lost. They lost a lot. Till 23rd April - Schumi won displaying the same fighting attitude that i loved, after what was a hopeless season last year. It lead people to comment that probably Schumi was over the hill and that maybe he should retire. Laughable. Imola was probably what they call "In ya face!"

24th April 1973 is part of history. It was almost poetic that one of my sporting heroes - one the critics thought was over the hill - fought back in the style of his greatest past races, on the eve of the God's bday. Its only foolish to write off Sachin Tendulkar. He was written off before WC 2003. He was the player of the tournament. Shoaib laughed him off before *that* match, he bowled only 1 over at the start of the inning before coming back much later ~ the match was over in 5 overs. You write off Sachin at your own peril. No doubt he aint the Sachin of 1998 - hell no, he will never be that again. No doubt he aint the best player in the team anymore - hell no, thats Dravid. But over the hill he isnt. He still is capable of playing supremely skillful innings and winning us matches (Pakistani series). Ofcourse his scores in tests arent great, but he isnt struggling to middle the ball - and it doesnt take long for a class act to start making it count.

Happy Birthday Sachin - get fit and blast the leather out of that ball again