Tendulkar named Wisden's Leading Cricketer

The Leading Cricketer in the World was instituted in Wisden 2004. The six previous winners have been Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne, Andrew Flintoff, Muttiah Muralitharan, Jacques Kallis and Virender Sehwag. Players can be chosen more than once for this award.

From the middle of October to the middle of December 2010, the Republic of India was beset by a series of corruption scandals - money illegally made on contracts for the Commonwealth Games, on housing projects in Mumbai and mining schemes in Karnataka, on the allocation of scarce airwaves for mobile-phone companies.

The amount stolen by politicians (of all parties) ran into hundreds of billions of rupees. The scandals dominated the headlines for weeks until they were temporarily set aside to make way for Sachin TendulkarOver the next decade, the social anxieties of Indians abated. Economic liberalisation created a class of successful entrepreneurs, who in turn generated a growing middle class.

Hindu-Muslim riots became less frequent. Meanwhile, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, V. V. S. Laxman and Virender Sehwag arrived to take some of the burden of making runs (and relieving fans) off Tendulkar. It became possible once more to appreciate him in purely cricketing terms, rather than as the Saviour of the Nation. 50th Test hundred. This was met with relief, but also with wonder and admiration - indeed, it revived calls for the batsman to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest honour, previously reserved for politicians, scientists and musicians.

For Tendulkar to be viewed as a balm for the nation's (mostly self-inflicted) wounds was not new. As long ago as 1998, the Bombay poet C. P. Surendran wrote: "Batsmen walk out into the middle alone. Not Tendulkar. Every time Tendulkar walks to the crease, a whole nation, tatters and all, marches with him to the battle arena. A pauper people pleading for relief, remission from the lifelong anxiety of being Indian, by joining in spirit their visored saviour." 

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