25 years strong, Sachin’s iconic ‘Desert Storm’ lives on | Cricket

Jake Ball drags his length back in hopes to somehow stop the Nicholas Pooran carnage, but the explosive West Indies wicketkeeper-batter instead says thank you very much. Sitting deep, Pooran launches a mammoth hit that clears the fences; it clears the stands, in fact. The ball would have eventually found a car parked somewhere inside the Sharjah Cricket Stadium complex, or might have even gone through the road across. It would have been a memorable sight for fans present at the stadium, only if it were not so repetitive.

As cricket-loving millennials, we are spoiled by power-hitting so much that the sixes are now sponsored by business conglomerates in cricketing leagues across the world, starting with the Indian Premier League – the biggest of them all. Last year, the IPL saw 1,062 sixes being hit in a single edition; that’s an average of nearly 14 sixes-per-match. Justifiably, it was a record for the tournament, and the first time when the number crossed the 1000-six mark.

But long before six-hitting turned into a norm, the bats became springier, and the concept of powerplays being introduced, there was an ODI played at Sharjah between India and Australia that has gained almost mystic proportions in the 25 years since. One of the greatest batters in the history of the game – Sachin Tendulkar – stood taller than the Aussie giants and produced a performance that rendered the English dictionary simply inadequate for justice. In a world yet to be introduced by T20s, Tendulkar’s five sixes sent the crowd into a frenzy and the commentators running out of adjectives.

As the sand swirled around the Sharjah Cricket Stadium at the time, the Indian hero emerged again to carry the nation’s hopes against Australia’s bowling royalty that had Glenn McGrath, Michael Kasprowicz, and Shane Warne, among others. He smashed 143 in a knock made of sheer grit, bravery, and the whirling dust, and the innings, over the years, became famous as ‘The Desert Storm’.

For many of us, that knock happened a long time ago but for the ones privileged enough to witness Tendulkar’s blitzkrieg live in Sharjah that day, it seemed he hit those sixes only yesterday.

“There was this match going on, and suddenly it became all cloudy. I will say it was a sandstorm, not a desert storm! I always call it a sandstorm,” Mazhar Khan, the managing director of the historic Sharjah Stadium – who was in attendance during the iconic game 25 years ago – told Hindustan Times in a chat during the International League T20 (ILT20).

Mazhar had arrived in the United Arab Emirates in 1975 and played a key role in establishing the country as a cricketing hotbed. He took over many administrative roles in UAE cricket and has been associated with Sharjah for decades.

“India were taking on Australia at the moment. In those days, there were no arrangements for players to sit near the boundary line. I remember Raj bhai (Raj Singh Dungarpur, former BCCI President and at the time, the chairman of the selection committee) sprinted down and told something in Sachin’s ear. As soon as the game resumed after the storm, he just thrashed everybody,” Mazhar recollects.

With over 20 minutes being lost in the game due to the storm, it was most likely the moment when Dungarpur communicated the target India needed to qualify for the final of the Coca Cola Cup. Whatever the message was; it brought out the absolute best in the ‘Master Blaster’.

“It just cannot be put into words. Over the head, through covers, through midwicket, it seemed he just sent the ball wherever he wanted to. It was an amazing knock, and that’s why he rates it as one of his best,” Mazhar says.

Cricket has changed a lot since then; and Tendulkar adapted to it in brilliant fashion. From being the first to score a double hundred in ODIs to becoming a top-scorer in Indian Premier League at the age of 37, Tendulkar showed nothing, indeed, was impossible for his genius.

“Of course, he could’ve been a great T20 batter today. His timing was immaculate. His footwork was like a Cheetah. He saw the ball much ahead of anyone, he had the ability to play the it anywhere across the park. A true great,” Mazhar says.

Over the turn of the decade, Sharjah, too, underwent further advancement in facilities after it adopted Pakistan as one of their home stadiums during the country’s international cricket ban in 2009. Sharjah was also host to three editions of the Indian Premier League but there is something about this venue consistently reminiscent of the years gone by.

Sharjah is one of the very few international cricket stadiums with an open-air press box – that means one can hear the sweet sound of the ball hitting the bat, and the cheer from the crowd that follows. It is almost as if one is a part of the action. The road adjacent to the stadium – called the Second Industrial Street – is one of the busiest in the city. It almost reminds one of the broadcasts from Sharjah games in the nineties, when cameras often switched to traffic on the road. It has not seemed to change much, except maybe for more technologically-advanced and aesthetically jaw-dropping cars taking over.

The ’Desert Storm’, too, continues to hold as much relevance as it did on April 22, 1998, despite the sport becoming further more aggressive in terms of big-hitting. The term is borrowed almost every time a batter sets the stage alight in Sharjah, and so it was on that February evening as well. When Nicholas Pooran smashed five sixes for an unbeaten 66 off 36 deliveries for MI Emirates in the eliminator against Dubai Capitals earlier this year, the ‘Desert Storm’, in big, bold letters, was flashed on the giant screen.