Being the most experienced player in the team gave Tendulkar the licence to express his reluctance without putting his team in any sort of jeopardy
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Issues over batting positions keep cropping up from time to time. The latest one came via an extract from Kolkata-based cricket writer Gautam Bhattacharya's book on Sachin Tendulkar entitled Sach where former India's coach Greg Chappell is quoted as saying that Tendulkar was reluctant to drop down to number four in the batting order for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.
Being the most experienced player in the team gave Tendulkar the licence to express his reluctance without putting his team in any sort of jeopardy. After all, he was on the cusp of playing his fifth World Cup.
At the same time, Chappell had a job to do on strategy which would suit the team. If this issue had to be settled through statistics, Tendulkar wanting to bat at number one would have been totally justified since he has scored most of his ODI runs in the opening position.
Anyway, Tendulkar batted in the middle order and had scores of 7, 57 not out and 0 to show. By the looks of it, Chappell got it wrong. So did the team.
The probable moral of the story is, allow your best player to decide what is best for him and team.
Chappell's predecessor John Wright handled it better. Tendulkar's batting position was a subject of debate even for the 2003 World Cup in Southern Africa. One evening during the warm-up games, Wright went to Tendulkar's room and asked him where he would like to bat. "I'll bat wherever the team wants me to bat; wherever they need me the most," came the reply. Wright had another question: "Fine, but where do YOU
want to bat." Tendulkar said he would like to open.
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Interestingly, Greg clashed with brother Ian over a batting position in the elder sibling's first one-day international during his comeback in 1979-80.
Ian related an incident in teammate Ashley Mallett's book Hitting Out. Skipper Greg told Ian after winning the toss at the Sydney Cricket Ground: "You batting three if we lose an early wicket; if we get a start,
you are number six." Ian has always maintained that number six is an "awful" position to bat in one-day cricket. He shot back at Greg: "I'm either three or six. I am not going in early to protect these pr**cks". And Greg had the last word: "F**k you then Ian, you are six."
Tendulkar and Chappell's clash may have not been as ugly as the above, but we don't have much reason to believe that both batting greats send birthday cards to each other.
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