Danny Morrison recalls denying 16-year-old Sachin Tendulkar a record
Former New Zealand pace bowler Danny Morrison recently recalled the incident where he Sachin Tendulkar the opportunity to become the youngest centurion in the history of Test cricket.
During India's tour to New Zealand in 1989-90, the right-arm pacer got the better of the Master Blaster when the latter was batting on 88 in the second Test.
Danny Morrison described the initial impression that Sachin Tendulkar made on him while also shedding light on the story of that dismissal. The cricketer-turned commentator did so during an interaction in The Edges and Sledged Podcast.
Sachin Tendulkar was at his swashbuckling best. Danny Morrison clearly remembers the three boundaries that the maestro hit him in the same over. Danny knew that he was seeing something special.
The former Mumbai Indians skipper was 16 years old when he went on India's tour to New Zealand in 1989-90. He did not have a bright start to the tour and scored just 0 and 24 in the first test at Christchurch. But, his fortunes changed in the second encounter, before being dismissed for 88.
"When I look at that and remember, yeah, a couple of shots... I remember the 88 he got in Napier, and he was in such a hurry! I think he hit me for three fours in this one over, and you could see that impetuous nature of the youth and he wanted to keep going, he ended up smashing me to John Wright," Danny Morrison said.
Sachin Tendulkar could have been the youngest centurion ever
The record for the youngest centurion belonged to Mushtaq Mohammad of Pakistan then, who had scored 101 against India in 1961, at the age of 17 years and 78 days.
Sachin Tendulkar was on the verge of breaking this record at Napier but fell 12 runs short. Danny Morrison recalls how disappointed the youngster was at the time and how it took ages to get him off the ground after he got dismissed.
"He was so impetuous because he could have been the youngest ever, and you could see it took him an age to get off the ground. [It was] like a snowball rolling down the hill, getting bigger and bigger, just getting boom, boom, boom until it went bust, sort of hit a tree down the mountain," Danny Morrison recalled.
Sachin Tendulkar eventually went on to score his maiden Test century a year later at the age of 17 years and 107 days.