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Will any cricketer surpass Sachin Tendulkar's popularity in our lifetime?

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Bhaijaan

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Few years ago i was unsure. I thought maybe if an Indian matches him in numbers and style his popularity might just be surpassed but as i see it now Kohli and Smith both have terrific numbers and none of them are anywhere near as hot as Tendulkar was in the same age and even before.


Our elders didn't have serious acceptance issues in putting Tendulkar above their past heroes i.e., Gavaskar/Richards. They revered Sachin but most of this generation and the soon to be elders are finding it difficult to put Kohli over Sachin despite clearly accepting Kohli is better in many things.

At Kohli's age Tendulkar was drawing crowds to the stadiums like crazy. Kohli is nowhere near as a crowd puller. Not many would pay to watch him over Tendulkar.

That just brings you back to the question.

Are we going to see a player in our lifetime who will be as popular if not more than Tendulkar was in late 90s and has been ever since?
 
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Sachin is probably the most popular cricketer of all time..Only Kohli can match his popularity but due to his behavior he has made many haters.
 
Spectrum said:
Sachin is probably the most popular cricketer of all time..Only Kohli can match his popularity but due to his behavior he has made many haters.
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In Ind and amongst Inds, but if you showed a picture of him to people in other countries he wouldnt be as well known as IK. Everyone that would know Sachin would know IK and IK has a much higher profile in the UK and around the world.
 
Tendulkar was generally a dour, boring personality and lacked charisma so dunno what you're talking about. Neutrals identified him for his great batting yes but didn't have the coolness factor with everyone lining up for a piece of him like they did with perhaps Viv.

Respected yes. But he wasn't as big of a box office attraction as others.

So thread premise is wrong imo unless OP is specifically talking about india only
 
There was this series of ads by adidas saying 'When Sachin bats, India stands still'. It didn't seem like an ad-maker's byline. It felt true to reality at that time. No one comes close to that in popularity.
 
Youngsta beauty is the most popular cricketer of all time :afridi
 
freelance_cricketer said:
Few years ago i was unsure. I thought maybe if an Indian matches him in numbers and style his popularity might just be surpassed but as i see it now Kohli and Smith both have terrific numbers and none of them are anywhere near as hot as Tendulkar was in the same age and even before.


Our elders didn't have serious acceptance issues in putting Tendulkar above their past heroes i.e., Gavaskar/Richards. They revered Sachin but most of this generation and the soon to be elders are finding it difficult to put Kohli over Sachin despite clearly accepting Kohli is better in many things.

At Kohli's age Tendulkar was drawing crowds to the stadiums like crazy. Kohli is nowhere near as a crowd puller. Not many would pay to watch him over Tendulkar.

That just brings you back to the question.

Are we going to see a player in our lifetime who will be as popular if not more than Tendulkar was in late 90s and has been ever since?
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Define popularity.... with cricket fans in general, Indian fans or transcending cricket and the world in general?

Indian fans then I doubt anyone will replace him in our lifetime. Other cricket fans will respect him but I wouldn't say he was "popular" as he's not particularly charismatic. Outside of cricket I don't think most of the world even knows who he is and I don't think it's likely that any cricketer will ever be as popular as other sports stars like Messi or Usain Bolt.
 
No one can beat :srt popularity in cricket :19:

I saw him once in MCG boxing day test 2011.

Of course :srt being Indian (highest percentage of world cricket fans), definitely in our lifetime no one else can beat him !
 
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Don Bradman is the most popular cricketer ever.

Just imagine, he made his cricketing debut in 1928. Since then, Everybody who knows anything about cricket has heard about Bradman & 99.94

Tendulkar made his debut 70 years later.

Surely more people in the history of earth will have heard of Bradman than Tendulkar. :sanga
 
I will be talking from non-Indian perspective as for Indians he might be greater than life person due to his achievements and tend to ignore his short comings.
Kohli for me is more popular already outside India than Sachin. Outside India ,cricket lovers do like Sachin's mannerism and technique but he lacked conviction in batting and never stamped authority on the opposition. He was found missing when high pressure chases were on .
That defines the best from the rest and this is where Sachin is lacking. He never rose to the occasion and took the opposition head-on.

He would just be remembered as a runs machine and the batsman with the perfect technique.
Viv, Kohli and Ponting having much higher ceiling in this regard and would stay longer in people's memory.
 
Tendulkar is the most revered cricketer of this generation by far and it makes no difference what some Pakistani posters think about that.

No cricketer Indian or foreign has received these sort of outrageous crowd reactions across the globe. You can do your own homework and identify the number of non Indian standing at their feet in awe of Sachin below. As much as we would like to see that even Kohli, Dhoni have not or will never come close to this sort of over the top response from crowd outside India.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uUtBqic1-Rk" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AOEQHANfI7M" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OxSYrb1YlAU" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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As always some Sachinistas will throw a fit....

Sachins 50 now almost but they are still teenagers
 
Hasan123 said:
Maybe Kohli can. He's a different personality to Sachin.
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He's India's biggest cricketing star and he is nowhere near Sachin's popularity even at home. Outside home it gets even worse where he gets boo'd and abused mercilessly by fans and media.
 
freelance_cricketer said:
He's India's biggest cricketing star and he is nowhere near Sachin's popularity even at home. Outside home it gets even worse where he gets boo'd and abused mercilessly by fans and media.
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Kohli is loved in India. Don't know what your talking about. Also he is involved with a lot of sponsors which shows his popularity around the world.
 
Imran Khan is much more popular even my Italian friends know about him
 
Interesting answer. My wife doesn't know who Bradman was or Kohli is. She knows who Sachin Tendulkar is.
 
Slog said:
Respected yes. But he wasn't as big of a box office attraction as others.
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lol what did you base that on? Sachin was the biggest box office attraction in history of cricket, he was the richest cricketer in the world by his mid 20s and this guy says he wasn't a big box office attraction :)))

On topic: Nope, can't see any cricketer reaching anywhere near the levels of sachin's popularity
 
Sachin is the most followed cricketer on twitter but kohli is very close behind him. Considering sachin retired 5 years ago and he's still beating kohli (who's at the peak of his career) on twitter just gives you the magnitude of sachin's popularity
 
I doubt that anyone comes even close. It has to do with him playing in certain era otherwise some other players may have taken that tag. He literally got standing ovations in many of his last tests in overseas venues. It's rare.
 
I bet he's the most respected. He wasn't controversial.
 
(First Post here)

The reason Sachin's popularity is ten folds comapared to Kohli is because Sachin was an oasis in a dessert of the rubbish 90s Indian team where we were pathetic and his performances gave the indian public something to cheer about.

Fast forward 15 years, BCCI is the richest cricketing board and the Indian team on an average is much better at cricket than it was in the 90s so now the Indian public albiet follow Kohli ( as he is Indian captain) but wont ever to the same standards as Tendulkar.
 
Isnt Dhoni more lovable and popular in Asia than Sachin
 
Yes Dhoni had a phase where he was considered 'God' only reason as he captained India to win a T20 Wc and a ODI W/C so as indian fans are, he became lovable. Once Kohli wins a W/C he will get the same treatment too.
 
Dhoni and Kohli are products of media manipulation. Sachin , although had media backing , was a feeling for Indians . That is something else.
 
WildSwing said:
Sachin is the most followed cricketer on twitter but kohli is very close behind him. Considering sachin retired 5 years ago and he's still beating kohli (who's at the peak of his career) on twitter just gives you the magnitude of sachin's popularity
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That's a pretty stupid metric to judge on, no offence

Top 5 followed cricketers are all Indians and include Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma :)))
 
Since I'm not Indian I can only comment from the outside but to me it felt that Tendulkar's career also came at exactly the right time to become a national icon in regards to India's own development both as a nation and in cricket and as in India's increasing global status in the world.
 
Slog said:
That's a pretty stupid metric to judge on, no offence

Top 5 followed cricketers are all Indians and include Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma :)))
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Not to forget that India has more twitter users than almost each and every major cricket playing country combined. What else to expect? A guy like Hardik Pandya has 4x the followers than Joe Root for instance.

Coming back to Tendulkar.. don't think any other cricketer would get the amount of media propaganda that Sachin received in his time. The guy's revered as a GOD fgs by a scaringly high amount of people, hell the criteria for giving Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian award) had to be changed solely to give it to the guy (For political reasons I might add). Thank God the media and the general populace has at least matured a bit from that phase.
 
Kohlee is twice the batsman and personality Tendulkar ever was, I think kohlee is competing with Imran khan at the moment.
 
Slog said:
That's a pretty stupid metric to judge on, no offence

Top 5 followed cricketers are all Indians and include Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma :)))
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What metric would you suggest? Please share with us your "genius" methodology to judge popularity :smith
 
Sachin Tendulkar is single biggest influence on Indian cricket. Almost the entire Indian team playing today grew up idolizing Sachin, I am from the kohli generation and let me tell you millions of Indians tuned in just to watch sachin bat during the late 90s, we didn't care about match results, we literally turned off the tv the moment sachin got out, most Indians during that phase weren't cricket fans, they were sachin fans, I can understand that people outside India might not understand why sachin is revered so much by Indians
 
Convict said:
Since I'm not Indian I can only comment from the outside but to me it felt that Tendulkar's career also came at exactly the right time to become a national icon in regards to India's own development both as a nation and in cricket and as in India's increasing global status in the world.
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From a neutral perspective, Do you consider him as the most popular cricketer ever after the second world war?
 
Every country has different superstars. During my father's younger days his Childhood hero was Vinoo Mankad. During my younger years (1980's) there was Gavaskar and Kapil. After that Sachin took over to another level. Perhaps in a decade someone else will replace Sachin in India.
 
FreakCricket said:
Kohlee is twice the batsman and personality Tendulkar ever was, I think kohlee is competing with Imran khan at the moment.
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Nobody can beat IK's charisma. Kohli can never be as good a batsman as Sachin and as charismatic as IK. Even with India's massive population, the most popular would be IK with Dhoni just behind him. Dhoni has fans in every country.

Sachin failed as a leader and one has to agree that it is a blot on his glorious resume. He could have gone past it had he scored his 100th 100 in mumbai in WC final and retired. He somewhat tarnished his legacy by overstaying.
 
As india is biggest criketing nation by population so it would be an indian and i think Kohli is there to surpass him.
 
WildSwing said:
Sachin Tendulkar is single biggest influence on Indian cricket. Almost the entire Indian team playing today grew up idolizing Sachin, I am from the kohli generation and let me tell you millions of Indians tuned in just to watch sachin bat during the late 90s, we didn't care about match results, we literally turned off the tv the moment sachin got out, most Indians during that phase weren't cricket fans, they were sachin fans, I can understand that people outside India might not understand why sachin is revered so much by Indians
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Nonsense. Tendulkar wasn't even the best Indian batsman for like half his career. After the emergence of guys like Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman, Sehwag, Gambhir, Pujara, Kohli etc etc he almost always had ample support in the department and was more often than not outperformed by one or more of these men at any stage of time. If you switched off your TV after Tendulkar choked in the 03 Final - you missed a pretty good counterattacking innings by Sehwag and an equally fighting 40 odd by Dravid which helped India to one stage be at 140 odd for 3 going at decent pace. It reflects much more poorly on you being an Indian fan than on Sachin's status.

The biggest influence on Indian cricket by far has been Kapil Dev. Not just as an all rounder but a proper fast bowler ( The likes of which we never had before or after him) and a captain who captivated his team to do the unthinkable in 1983. The most cherished achievement of every Indian cricket fan. Tendulkar was lucky in the sense that electronic media took off around the time he was ascending up the ranks leading to him getting obscene amounts of coverage and propaganda. The likes of Gavaskar, Kapil, the Spin legends, the legends of yesteryears like Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad never had such luxury. All of these cricketers have contributed just as much if not more to Indian cricket than what Tendulkar has.
 
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Proactive_ said:
Nonsense.
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Didn't read a word after this, considering the things you post over here you have some nerve calling other's views as nonsense. Kohli worships sachin, Sehwag, yuvi, dhoni have all said they idolized sachin but here comes mr knowitall to pass his personal nonsensical opinion as fact, lol talk about irony :uakmal
 
WildSwing said:
Didn't read a word after this, considering the things you post over here you have some nerve calling other's views as nonsense. Kohli worships sachin, Sehwag, yuvi, dhoni have all said they idolized sachin but here comes mr knowitall to pass his personal nonsensical opinion as fact, lol talk about irony :uakmal
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LOL Kohli mentioned Herschelle Gibbs as his favourite batsman at the U19 WC. He conveniently changed it to Tendulkar to score some more brownie points with the crazy Indian fans who worship Tendulkar. I'm pretty sure many others who claim to be Tendu bhakts are doing the same.
 
TM Riddle said:
From a neutral perspective, Do you consider him as the most popular cricketer ever after the second world war?
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Depends.
In pure numbers yes.

In overall global appeal among all fans it has to be Viv Richards.
 
Whwn imran khan played, there was no social media, tv s were not a common thing in india (maybe in pak also) thats why imran may not be that popular. But according to me if he would have played in same era as sachin he would have been as popular if not more.
He had charisma and hero type looks.
Sachin's humility was his charisma and the less we talk about looks the better it is.
But if we ignore these practical reasons than sachin is more popular obviously.
 
Convict said:
Since I'm not Indian I can only comment from the outside but to me it felt that Tendulkar's career also came at exactly the right time to become a national icon in regards to India's own development both as a nation and in cricket and as in India's increasing global status in the world.
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Yeah true.

Tomorrow if we get another Sachin, he still won't be as popular as the original Sachin.

Amazing cricketer but his insane popularity is also due to being at the right place at the right time.
 
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As an outsider, I would have thought Dhoni would have been more popular within the Indian public for what he has achieved for India as a team and didn't just chase his personal milestones. Winning T20 WC, ODI WC, CT, Test mace all under one captain is a stuff of legends.
 
Hitman said:
LOL @ Imran Khan being more popular than Sachin :))
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Unlike u I have lived in 11 different countries studied in many international schools and have had friends from many cultures..many Americans Chinese Europeans I knew had never even heard of Sachin but knew Imran. Come out of your Indian bubble for once
 
asadee said:
Unlike u I have lived in 11 different countries studied in many international schools and have had friends from many cultures..many Americans Chinese Europeans I knew had never even heard of Sachin but knew Imran. Come out of your Indian bubble for once
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Inferiority complex is never a good thing. Neither are the rest of us fools to believe anything you say. How do you know anything about me? Like I said, inferiority complex is never a good thing. Try to get out of that.
 
asadee said:
Unlike u I have lived in 11 different countries studied in many international schools and have had friends from many cultures..many Americans Chinese Europeans I knew had never even heard of Sachin but knew Imran. Come out of your Indian bubble for once
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Sure, and we are supposed to just take your word for it :))) Everyone can make up stuff on the internet, I lived in 12 different countries and studied in more international schools than you and have friends from more cultures than you can imagine and no one's heard of Imran but everyone knew sachin, see how easy it is to make up rubbish :viru
 
asadee said:
Unlike u I have lived in 11 different countries studied in many international schools and have had friends from many cultures..many Americans Chinese Europeans I knew had never even heard of Sachin but knew Imran. Come out of your Indian bubble for once
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I own a jet. I can go everywhere I want to go. And everywhere I go, I ask people about Tendulkar and Imran.

The reply I get is, "we love Tendulkar!!!! Who is Imran by the way?"

Don't blame me. That's what people in the countries I flew to told me.
 
Itachi said:
I own a jet. I can go everywhere I want to go. And everywhere I go, I ask people about Tendulkar and Imran.

The reply I get is, "we love Tendulkar!!!! Who is Imran by the way?"

Don't blame me. That's what people in the countries I flew to told me.
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:))) Ouch.
 
No sure why most of the Pak fans get triggered every time Indian fan writes anything good about Sachin. They just call those Indian fans as Sachinistas, cheer girl, etc to show their frustration.
 
Sachin has far more appeal worldwide because...

A) He is Indian therefore has a bigger fan base and marketing ability.

B) Sachin’s star grew in the mid-to-late 90’s up to 2012. This is when cricket became a global sport and the influx of technology helped showcase it around the world as Sachin as its main attraction.
 
No way !!! Sehwag copied sachin's shot for shot and became a legend himself. Many of the current gen batsmen were inspired by Sachin. Back in the 90s Sachin had a huge fan following in NZ. I am not talking about Indians. I am talking about little new zealand kids. He inspired a generation of cricketers. Most recent interview by Subhman Gill the future star echoed the same. He practiced copying Sachin's every shot. The intangible effect he has on the budding young cricketers is immeasurable.
 
WildSwing said:
Sachin is the most followed cricketer on twitter but kohli is very close behind him. Considering sachin retired 5 years ago and he's still beating kohli (who's at the peak of his career) on twitter just gives you the magnitude of sachin's popularity
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Poor way to judge popularity. Are you saying Kohli should be beating everyone at the peak of his career? Tendulkar also had a peak and didn't just lose followers after that. He's played and lived longer hence it isn't odd that he has more followers at the moment. The thing that is impressive is that Kohli is that close. Mid career he's not that far off from Sachin who is retired.
 
Cricket was more popular in Sachin's era with great cricketers coming out of every country. That also meant more fans and people who were passionate about cricket were present. That played a huge role in Sachin's popularity. Whereas Kohli and other cricketers of this generation are playing in an era where Cricket is fading away. The old big guns England and Australia aren't producing great cricketers anymore, the mighty West Indies and Sri Lanka can't even be considered good, NZ is more about rugby and is a small nation anyway, and the associates don't get aided enough to maintain their passion for the game.

With all this, the fan following is decreasing so most likely there is no player that would ever reach the popularity and fame of Sachin or even say IK and Viv.
 
No one. Sachin was insanely over to the point that he could score ducks in every match for a while and still get crazy pops from the crowd. PPers love to troll in his name but the guy transcended the sport. He did not have crazy charisma or a fiery personality but the crowd just took to him.
 
leatherface58 said:
No one. Sachin was insanely over to the point that he could score ducks in every match for a while and still get crazy pops from the crowd. PPers love to troll in his name but the guy transcended the sport. He did not have crazy charisma or a fiery personality but the crowd just took to him.
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Saxhin did not transcend the sport of cricket. Heck I don't think any cricketer ever has...

Unless you follow cricket or have some connection to it (let's say a friend is a cricket fanatic or you belong to a cricket crazy country) it is unlikely you will know any cricketer.

People like Messi, Maradona. Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan etc transcend their sport where random people who don't know anything about their particular sport atleast know of these sportsman
 
Slog said:
Saxhin did not transcend the sport of cricket. Heck I don't think any cricketer ever has...

Unless you follow cricket or have some connection to it (let's say a friend is a cricket fanatic or you belong to a cricket crazy country) it is unlikely you will know any cricketer.

People like Messi, Maradona. Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan etc transcend their sport where random people who don't know anything about their particular sport atleast know of these sportsman
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That's true. No cricketer has transcended the game.
 
Sachin is no doubt more popular due to Indian Population but Imran Khan is not too far away...
 
For Indian masses he was opium in a depressing era of 90s. Someone who made them feel good about their country.
For rest of the world (neutral) he was artist with the bat.
 
leatherface58 said:
No one. Sachin was insanely over to the point that he could score ducks in every match for a while and still get crazy pops from the crowd. PPers love to troll in his name in but the guy transcended the sport. He did not have crazy charisma or a fiery personality but the crowd just took to him.
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Bang on.

People keep coming up with random names to troll Sachin which is shameful.

Imran, Lara were great cricketers. An argument could be made to say they were in fact better cricketers but we are discussing pure popularity here.

To break it down Shahid Afridi is way way more popular than Inzamam or Younis Khan. Heck he might be even more over with the crowds than even Imran I don't know but Afridi had insane fan following.

Affidi is probably the second most over cricketer of this generation after Sachin ahead of Kohli, Lara, Altar, Dhoni, Warne you name any top cricketer bar Sachin and Afridi would beat them at popularity charts.

Back to Sachin like you pointed out the guy could stay out of form for a freaking year and still be madly over with the crowds. Dhoni had few bad matches and people are already discussing replacing him. Tendulkar outsurvived David, Laxman and many cricketers who .Are their debuts even decades after Sachin mostly to do with his own genius but being madly over with crowds certainly played a part in his insanely long survival in Cricket. His last two years were atrocious we all know. No player in any nation would have survived those two years being out of form like that. Sachin had insane backing from fans. He had power even over the BCCI.

Twitter following means nothing. Bring all the too players in the stadium and the crowd will clearly distinguish Tendulkar from the rest with massive pops like they have always done throughout his career. Speaking from my heart with utmost respect I watched cricket for nearly 20 years and I cannot recall even one instance when an opposition player outmatched Tendulkar in popularity. His stature towered over Lara, Warne, Wasim even when was touring them.

And it's not just being Indian. I am unable to see Kohli getting anywhere close. He's already there with numbers but nowhere near the aura of Sachin which just brings you back to the question if someone will during our lifetime.
 
Back to Sachin like you pointed out the guy could stay out of form for a freaking year and still be madly over with the crowds.
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He was booed in an Indian stadium if I remember... What was that for?
 
freelance_cricketer said:
Tendulkar is the most revered cricketer of this generation by far and it makes no difference what some Pakistani posters think about that.

No cricketer Indian or foreign has received these sort of outrageous crowd reactions across the globe. You can do your own homework and identify the number of non Indian standing at their feet in awe of Sachin below. As much as we would like to see that even Kohli, Dhoni have not or will never come close to this sort of over the top response from crowd outside India.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uUtBqic1-Rk" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AOEQHANfI7M" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OxSYrb1YlAU" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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I'm not even Indian and that gave me chills. Similar to when I caught Messi during an Argentina friendly; the adulation is almost reverential from anyone who follows the game. No one will surpass the kind of standing that Tendulkar had in the overall game is what I'd wager.

I'm not a huge fan of Sachin the person though. The Indian media did a fantastic job of building him up as a holy cow that cannot be criticized that obviously helped. Sitting on the other side of the border, Dravid always seemed like a more genuine gentleman.
 
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