Virat Kohli has just played a stupendous innings in a losing
cause in the WC T20 Semi-final. Just a couple of days earlier, he played what
is arguably the best T20 innings of all time. Commentators and newspaper
articles are searching for adjectives to explain his performances any further. All this while he is having a purple patch in
all formats of the game. Inevitably, comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar have
sprouted everywhere.
In my opinion, there are certain human tendencies that are
fundamental to our existence. A few characteristics that can’t be changed.
Quest for power is the most pervasive of those. Another such characteristic is
to compare. So, despite rational thought saying that comparing people across
two different eras is a futile exercise, we always compare. Comparing in itself
is Ok, but we always attach a judgement to it. And thence the conflicts.
One of the obvious things that our brains use to define
greatness is statistics. Find the best performer by numbers and certify him the
GOAT (Greatest of All Time). But then our heart doesn’t agree with that most
often. Why is that?
If greatness was to be defined only by statistics, Michael
Schumacher, Jacques Kallis, Lionel Messi would be the greatest in their
respective sports. But it is not as simple as that, is it?
Schumacher is certainly up there, but there is a majority of
fans who respect Ayrton Senna more. If not for his death, he certainly would
have achieved more. His tragic death created a bigger halo around him than his
numbers. The Russians have won more in Chess, but Bobby Fischer is
always considered by many as the greatest. Because of the impact he had on
Non-Russian Chess, for breaking through the impassable barrier.
Jacques Kallis won more matches for South Africa than Sachin
did for India in Tests, had a better average, was the greatest all-rounder of
his times. But still, Sachin is one notch higher. Why is that? It is the impact
Sachin had. The hope he gave to a developing nation still reeling under poverty
and an inferiority complex, the defeats after many heroic innings by him, for
pioneering those multi crore contracts, for scoring a century days after his
father’s death, for ‘Desert Storm’, the list goes on. None of them deal with
stats.
Bob Paisley possibly won more trophies and titles as Manager
than Bill Shankly and Matt Busby, but Shankly and Busby are one step better.
Bill Shankly created the new Liverpool out of dust and Matt Busby built his
Manchester United team after the Munich Air Disaster. Messi is one of the Greatest, but to me, he will continue to
be one level lesser than Pele and Maradona as long as he does not win the World
Cup for Argentina. League titles and Champions Trophies don’t touch our souls
like World Cup wins do.
Usain Bolt may have won more, but Jesse Owens is a Symbol.
To win in Germany in front of Hitler. Similarly, there could be better players
than Muhammed Ali in numbers, but Ali will always be ‘The Greatest’.
Take any sport, as long as statistics agree with our
emotional favourite, we are Ok with ‘the greatest’ debate, but once the numbers
don’t favour our hero, we turn to emotional reasons.
So how do we define a
GOAT? What does one need to do to become a GOAT.
It is the emotions around a player,
the tragedies he faced and won, the failures, the vulnerabilities, the player’s
contribution to the sport as a whole, the sporting statements that he made for
his country and the world that defines greatness. Statistics only help create
the Greatness Myth, but only emotions complete them.
