Sachin not in ICC top 20 of greatest batsmen ever

Little master, Master Blaster, The Little Champion are just some of the titles bestowed upon one of the greatest batsmen of all times, the hero of India and the hope of a billion people, “Sachin Tendulkar”. Today morning while reading the newspaper I was surprised to find out that he has been ranked at No. 26 in all time great batsmen rating for test cricket batsmen and at no. 12 for the ODIs. Clearly for me these rankings hold no meaning, which do not think of keeping Sachin even in the top five. I am a student of a B-School and in our business rankings are not something you tend to follow closely. Statistics is something which can be easily manipulated and changing the parameters here and there you can place even ENRON at the greatest company of all times. What is more important here is for us to realize the role Sachin has played for the Indian cricket. At one time he was the only hope of a billion plus people and was treated like God in a country which treated cricket as a religion. Bookies were afraid of him and he gave nightmares to one of the greatest leg spinners of all time Shane Warne.
Well team effort is very important but history has always been biased to favor those who have lead their team or army to victory single handed. Such heroes are called one man army and become immortals in history. Team effort has never brought glory to a single individual. Pele, Maradona, Sachin what did these people have in common, that they were alone enough for the eleven players in the opposite side and the strategy of the opposition was also to target the single individual for victory. Pele and Maradona led their sides to victory single handed in world cups. In the 1996 Will World Cup Sachin alone took India to the semis, before the turning pitch of the eden garden wiped Indians off. And with respect to pitch also I must say that till Sachin was there on the field India was doing well. It was only after he got out at 64 did the pitch started turning abnormally. Maybe the pitch also knew that it was of no use to turn while Sachin was playing. Jokes apart this shows the power of master blaster and his talent. Among the contemporary actors only Shahruk is bestowed upon the title of King Khan, when maybe even Amir, Saif, Akshay are as good as him. The reason is when the Indian film industry was going through a slowdown phase in the late 90’s , and the films of all the major stars were failing miserably, Shahrukh’s films were doing good business. His presence in the film was enough for the ticket counters to make advance booking for a week. This is the power of one man army. Talking about the Gujrat CM Narendra Modi, his party was not supporting him for the elections. Most senior leaders were jealous of his rising power and all the senior leaders of BJP refused to go to Gujrat to campaign for Modi. He was all alone in the battle field but his determination and political acumen lead to a victory for him. It was perhaps the first time I had seen that news papers had written Modi wins Gujrat instead of BJP wins as they knew whose victory it is. Hence ICC can come out with as many rankings it wants but the master blaster will still be No. 1 for India and the world.