The Sachin Brigade touches the 50 Test Century Landmark in Centurion

By Sreelata S. Yellamrazu

If Sachin Tendulkar commands respect unlike none other in contemporary cricket, it is because he is the one player who can be counted upon to change history and the way the game is played by a single stroke of his bat, much like a magic wand. The mastermind was at work again, making Centurion more famous by notching his fiftieth Test century while keeping India’s head held high under the most arduous of circumstances.



By the time India touched down in South Africa, the anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar’s impending fiftieth Test century was reaching a crescendo. But then, also growing was an apprehension as India were embarking on plausibly their biggest test following their new found status in Test cricket – playing overseas in South Africa where they had not even drawn series before, let alone win one. However, it appeared much like the part of a master design that Sachin Tendulkar would inadvertently save this remarkable milestone for a significant point in India’s history that will be remembered irrespective of the result of the match.

Under incredible duress with the visitors batting second on a mammoth deficit of 484 runs, India’s chances of saving the Test seemed bleak. Even more somber seemed the mood given that India had arrived as the no.1 Test team in the world, taking on a team smarting rather enviously from the success that India have had over the past year, endorsing their position at the top of the pedestal. To then be reduced to ridicule was weighing heavily on India. In the face of such seemingly insurmountable situation where saving the Test seemed an improbability and saving face seemed almost completely out of question, Tendulkar produced a gem of an innings that only he could have played to restore dignity and pride to the proceedings in the face of the inevitable.

Tendulkar’s ability to strike fear in the heart of the opposition has been well chronicled as also his ability to impact an innings. In the end he was the one reason why South Africa grew frustrated in their endeavours as Tendulkar took on the onus of India’s pride on himself yet again and in it, fashioned a self assured innings that defied the diffidence that would mark other men and teams in a similar situation. Tendulkar’s 172 run partnership with the Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, changed the complexion of the match up until that point because it brought positive stroke play to the crease. It forced South Africa’s fast bowlers, bloated by their wickets tally, to go on the back foot and their lone spinner to contend with the fact that he was essentially at the mercy of the maestro. The evidence of that self assuredness at the crease saw India coming within thirty runs of overhauling the deficit while that partnership was on.


Tendulkar himself epitomized the sea change that Indian cricket has undergone wherein gone are the days when the team, put under pressure, would turn into a docile unit with a defeatist mindset at the outset. Instead South Africa, despite being in the dominant position that they were in with a lead of 484 runs, were forced to work for each of the Indian wickets, almost twice as hard in the second innings, and none more so than that of Tendulkar who remained unconquered at the end of the battle.

Only someone of the stature of Tendulkar could make the opposition team feel less confident in victory while India managed to hold their head high, even if the margin of defeat would have been a cause for concern. India did not merely roll over; and while for some others, playing the way Tendulkar did would have been considered unnecessarily expending energy in a lost cause, for Tendulkar, losing has never been an option. And true to form, India did not look like losers when the game eventually drew to its conclusion, irrespective of the fact that India had failed to cross the first hurdle on this most important overseas ordeal. They had redeemed themselves without disgrace and it was both, fitting and disconcerting, that it was Sachin Tendulkar who ended up being the last man standing for India.

For someone who has publicly ignored numbers while setting his own personal goals in silent fashion, it is rather incredible how numbers keep chasing his bat and not the other way round. Although modest enough to put it in perspective as “only another number”, Sachin Tendulkar was obviously mindful of the fact that the kind of extraordinary success that he has achieved has come on the back of some personal rewarding relationships as he dedicated his fiftieth Test century in the memory of his late departed father whose birthday it was the previous day and who had instilled in him the humility that is almost in complete contrast with the phenomenal success that none could have previously imagined, let alone achieve.

One would have thought twenty years of the grind would have him struggle with battle weariness. His milestones alone, given that the only records he breaks are his own, should have had him rest on his laurels, if only out of sheer boredom. But Sachin Tendulkar evidently does not know what either one of them means. It is clear in the focus he displayed en route to his fiftieth century and the forty-nine times before it. Appropriate to the situation, Tendulkar chose not to gloat on the significance of his landmark because being the ultimate team player, he knew India’s mission still loomed large.

It is hard to pay ode to a man who continues to surprise cricket aficionados not only by his unadulterated, child-like passion for the sport but also, backed by that insatiable hunger that has seen him cap off yet another incredible year in his twenty year cricket career graph with his seventh Test century in 2010 that brings his tally to fifty Test centuries and ninety-six international centuries overall. It is a feat to merely put them up in print, the counting gets more arduous as Tendulkar appears only to get younger, and ironically more accomplished, in his extraordinarily sublime pursuit for excellence in the game.

(The article has appeared in full print first on www.cricdude.com and has been reproduced with said permission.)