Sachin Tendulkar - The ultimate servant
I woke up shocked to hear the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar from ODI cricket. I blinked at least a dozen times to see if it really was true. Sachin Tendulkar has been a tireless servant for the past 23 years. I personally felt he deserved an honourable retirement, or you could say ‘retiring on a high’. Quite often, cricketers are not lucky enough to retire as they wish to, and Tendulkar also met the same fate. Due to his consistent failures in Test cricket, Tendulkar simply had to take a tough decision. One would have to say he got pressurized by the media and the cricket pundits calling for his head. When people pass remarks like “why let the team down by hanging on” and “don’t be selfish”, he had no other way out.
Looking into Tendulkar‘s career over the years, one could see he was just a humble and trustworthy servant for the Indian team. Now the Indian cricket team boasts of players like Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Raina, Sharma etc. but in the late 90s and in the early 2000s, we didn’t have any of them. That is where the importance of Tendulkar should be emphasized. At those times, people used to say if Tendulkar departs, it’s end of the game and people used to switch the tv sets off or leave the grounds, and even I’m not different. When Tendulkar came on to bat in every match, the weight of expectations on him was too much from the fans – almost like he had to score in almost every match. Sachin Tendulkar is all about passion, commitment, motivation, temperament, humility and all this backed up by talent. I can look at those qualities and say that he is a true genius.
Here is a list of the 49 ODI hundreds Sachin scored in his illustrious career:
1. 110 Vs Australia, Colombo (RPS), 9 Sep 1994
2. 115 Vs New Zealand, Vadodara, 28 Oct 1994
3. 105 Vs West Indies, Jaipur, 11 Nov 1994
4. 112* Vs Sri Lanka, Sharjah, 9 Apr 1995
5. 127* Vs Kenya, Cuttack, 18 Feb 1996
6. 137 Vs Sri Lanka, Delhi, 2 Mar 1996
7. 100 Vs Pakistan, Singapore, 5 Apr 1996
8. 118 Vs Pakistan, Sharjah, 15 Apr 1996
9. 110 Vs Sri Lanka, Colombo (RPS), 28 Aug 1996
10. 114 Vs South Africa, Mumbai, 14 Dec 1996
11. 104 Vs Zimbabwe, Benoni, 9 Feb 1997
12. 117 Vs New Zealand, Bangalore, 14 May 1997
13. 100 Vs Australia, Kanpur, 7 Apr 1998
14. 143 Vs Australia, Sharjah, 22 Apr 1998
15. 134 Vs Australia, Sharjah, 24 Apr 1998
16. 100* Vs Kenya, Kolkata, 31 May 1998
17. 128 Vs Sri Lanka, Colombo (RPS), 7 Jul 1998
18. 127* Vs Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, 26 Sep 1998
19. 141 Vs Australia, Dhaka, 28 Oct 1998
20. 118* Vs Zimbabwe, Sharjah, 8 Nov 1998
21. 124* Vs Zimbabwe, Sharjah, 13 Nov 1998
22. 140* Vs Kenya, Bristol, 23 May 1999
23. 120 Vs Sri Lanka, Colombo (SSC), 29 Aug 1999
24. 186* Vs New Zealand, Hyderabad, 8 Nov 1999
25. 122 Vs South Africa, Vadodara, 17 Mar 2000
26. 101 Vs Sri Lanka, Sharjah, 20 Oct 2000
27. 146 Vs Zimbabwe, Jodhpur, 8 Dec 2000
28. 139 Vs Australia, Indore, 31 Mar 2001
29. 122* Vs West Indies, Harare, 4 Jul 2001
30. 101 Vs South Africa, Johannesburg, 5 Oct 2001
31. 146 Vs Kenya, Paarl, 24 Oct 2001
32. 105* Vs England, Chester-le-Street, 4 Jul 2002
33. 113 Vs Sri Lanka, Bristol, 11 Jul 2002
34. 152 Vs Namibia, Pietermaritzburg, 23 Feb 2003
35. 100 Vs Australia, Gwalior, 26 Oct 2003
36. 102 Vs New Zealand, Hyderabad, 15 Nov 2003
37. 141 Vs Pakistan, Rawalpindi, 16 Mar 2004
38. 123 Vs Pakistan, Ahmedabad, 12 Apr 2005
39. 100 Vs Pakistan, Peshawar, 6 Feb 2006
40. 141* Vs West Indies, Kuala Lumpur, 14 Sep 2006
41. 100* Vs West Indies, Vadodara, 31 Jan 2007
42. 117* Vs Australia, Sydney, 2 Mar 2008
43. 163* Vs New Zealand, Christchurch, 8 Mar 2009
44. 138 Vs Sri Lanka, Colombo (RPS), 14 Sep 2009
45. 175 Vs Australia, Hyderabad, 5 Nov 2009
46. 200* Vs South Africa, Gwalior, 24 Feb 2010
47. 120 Vs England, Bangalore, 27 Feb 2011
48. 111 Vs South Africa, Nagpur, 12 Mar 2011
49. 114 Vs Bangladesh, Dhaka, 16 Mar 2012
Sachin Tendulkar, it has truly been an honor to watch you bat and play for India; not just for the die-hard Sachinists, but also for neutral fans like me. I will surely miss those elegant flicks on the on-side, the upper cuts and those straight drives that shows the manufacturers logo. But no one is immortal, and nothing exists for ever. Wishing you good luck with the Test team.When you have announced retirement from ODI cricket, it simply means you are on a mission to revamp the Test team and make it No.1 once again. Thank you God for making me watch this living legend grace us for over these 23 years and who continues to in the Test team. Bidding adieu to the best ODI Cricketer in this era!