Reliving Sachin Tendulkar's ODI centuries: 1-5

In the early years of Sachin Tendulkar's one-day international career, he usually batted in the middle order and could not quite get enough time to score centuries.

In fact, it took him 76 innings and 79 games to score his first century in one-day internationals, but once he started scoring them he did not seem to stop.

Over the course of his career, he became one of the greatest batsmen in limited overs cricket and scored 49 centuries over the course of his stellar career.

Here is a look at his early years and a closer look at the first 5 centuries that he scored for India.

#5 110 v Australia at Colombo (Premadasa Stadium), 1994

Sachin Tendulkar's very first century in one-day internationals took a long time coming and it was an innings that was of such high quality that it would remain in the minds of anyone who was privileged enough to have watched it live. Tendulkar's promotion in the batting order to the opener's slot had unlocked his full potential as an ODI batsman and in the 3rd game of the Singer World Series in Colombo, he put the Australian bowlers to the sword, with an innings of breathtaking brilliance.

The Australian bowling attack consisted of Craig McDermott, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Tim May and Steve Waugh (who used to be a regular bowler at the time), but they could not do much as Tendulkar took control of the game. He hit 8 fours and 2 sixes en route to his 110 and brought up his first-ever ODI century. He had a strike rate of 84.61 and helped India get to 246, which eventually proved to be the winning score.

​