SK Flashback: Sachin Tendulkar scores his 100th international hundred
It was on 12 March 2011 when Sachin Tendulkar scored his 99th international ton. It was a blazing innings of 111 off 101 deliveries but it still wasn’t enough to win the match for Team India.
What this innings did, though, was start a countdown to his 100th international hundred. Every time Sachin went out to bat, fans waited with bated breath to see if this would be the historic day when their “God” finally became the first cricketer in history to score 100 international hundreds.
The wait became longer with each passing day, and eventually, fans had to wait for over a year – 34 innings to be precise – for that glorious day to finally arrive. Tendulkar did come agonisingly close to the milestone on a couple of occasions – he amassed 91 against England at the Oval and 94 against West Indies at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, but the wait ended at Dhaka, in the Asia Cup of 2012.
Also read: SK Flashback: Sachin Tendulkar's 155* against Australia in Chennai
The date was 16 March and India were playing Bangladesh in the 4th match of the tournament. Let’s take a look at how the day panned out:
The Master Blaster and the Modern Master make the home team toil
First, there was the “Little Master” – Sunil Gavaskar, then the mantle moved onto another little Mumbaikar who became renowned as the “Master Blaster” – Sachin Tendulkar, and now, it’s the “Modern Master” – Virat Kohli, who is holding the flag of Indian batting aloft.
On this day, the duo came together in the 6th over at the fall of Gautam Gambhir’s wicket with the score at just 25, and stitched together a partnership of 148 in 30 overs to set a platform for the likes of Raina and Dhoni to unleash their fury later in the innings.
Sachin overshadowed Kohli by scoring 75 runs in the partnership. The current Indian skipper scored a slightly uncharacteristic 66 from 82 balls with just five fours but gave ample support to Sachin en route to his much-awaited milestone.