This game is about character as much as it is about records and performances, and two shades of the cricketing character were showcased over the past 24 hours in Chennai.
Yesterday, Ricky Ponting got an edge so thick, a fraction thicker and it would have been the middle. He stood there, poker faced, till the third umpire turfed him out.
Today, Sachin Tendulkar got a brute from Ravi Rampaul in the first over of the Indian innings -- a ball that jumped, tennis ball fashion, from just back of good length, squared the batsman up, and touched something -- glove, splice, who knew? -- as it careened through.
The umpire shook his head. Sachin shook his head, too -- in personal disappointment that he hadn't managed to evade that. And turning around, he walked, before the West Indies could even think of an appeal.
It is not my case that batsmen should always walk, or that one form of behavior is preferable to the other. But the contrasting incidents go some way to explaining why one player is revered the world over, and the other one occasionally reviled even in his native land.
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