The agony of Tendulkar missing out on a ton

It was a lazy Sunday morning which promised to bring the whole of India to a standstill. Braving the hot and humid Chennai morning, thousands made a bee line for the Chepauk stadium with anticipation written all over their face. The sense of occasion was hard to miss.

The settings were just about perfect. Just the previous evening, a certain Sachin Tendulkar, on one of his favorite grounds, had played one of his most assured innings in over two years and was unbeaten on 71. It was 25 months ago, in January 2011, that the cricketing world had last seen the familiar sight of the master blaster, in white flannels, taking off his helmet and raising his bat to acknowledge the cheering crowd and if Saturday’s play was anything to go by, there was every chance of it happening again. The Chepauk stadium has been the venue of some his memorable innings and this was shaping up to be another special one.

A thunderous applause greeted him as he strode out to the center along with Virat Kohli. About 10 minutes later, he scored his first runs of the day, flicking a loose Peter Siddle delivery off his pads to the boundary and the decibel level threatened to carry across the Indian ocean and reach the coasts of Australia.

The Australians were in no way overawed by the hype and came out looking to take the initiative back from the hosts. Michael Clarke got the field up and let his best bowlers loose. While the sole Australian wicket-taker James Pattinson looked fiery from one end, the workhorse Siddle kept pegging away from the other end to put the Indian batsmen through a stern test on a wearing pitch, denying them any easy runs.

If the attack was of high quality, the maestro and his heir apparent, Kohli, also showed a lot of steel and resolve in their defense. A hint of reverse swing coupled with the Aussie duo’s speed meant that the runs were not easy to come by. But the master was in no hurry and at one point of time the Indians played out 4 consecutive maidens, just looking to get through the initial tough phase.

Soon, Clarke got the spinner, Nathan Lyon, on. Surely the tempo is going to go up now, was the feeling all around and Tendulkar obliged with an aggressive sweep shot off Lyon’s first delivery. But as the over progressed, a few demons reared up their heads from the pitch. One went past Kohli’s ankle while another, from the same length, jumped to hit the gloves and luckily for India, fell short of the close-in fielder. Get forward and hit Lyon off his length, Tendulkar must have told himself at the other end.

Lyon, having bowled short for most part of day 2, had the master on strike at the start of his second over and decided to go full. Tendulkar, on 81 then, would have dispatched many such loopy overpitched deliveries in his career and it looked as if the routine course of action will take over.

But the ball suddenly dipped on the batsman and turned in viciously from the footmarks to sneak in through the gap, taking a thin inside edge on its way to the leg stump. Lyon and the Aussies jumped around in glee as the whole stadium was engulfed in a stunned silence. A little grimace on the face, a shake of the head from Tendulkar before putting his bat in his arms and taking his gloves off on his way back to the pavilion – a ritual more familiar in recent time. The crowd, almost reluctantly, shrugged off the disappointment to stand up and applaud the innings of 81, contemplating a wasted Sunday.

The India of old would have folded up soon after Tendulkar’s departure and Chennai would know a thing or two about it – think of the Test match against Pakistan here in 1999. But the thousands of cricket lovers at the Chepauk didn’t return empty handed and were treated to two high quality innings from India, a classy hundred from Kohli and a belligerent double hundred from the ‘homeboy’ Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Chennai people identify more with CSK than with the Tamil Nadu Ranji team).

With India moving into a  position of strength at the end of day three, it was entertainment galore for the home supporters but as they left the ground there was that sense of missing out on something. Yes, Kohli and Dhoni were brilliant but Test century number 52 for Tendulkar would have made the day perfect.

Much of India was brought to a standstill today but the familiar short man was far away from the action, clapping for his skipper from the comforts of the dressing room. The positive thing from the innings for all Tendulkar fans, though, is that it seems the wait for century number 52 won’t be a long one now.