Cricket World Cup 2011: India's Sachin Tendulkar on verge of history by scoring his 100th international century

Sachin Tendulkar could become the first man to hit 100 international hundreds on Sunday.

Centurion: India's Sachin Tendulkar will reach 100 international hundreds if he scores a century against the West Indies Photo: GETTY IMAGES

If Bangladesh had won on Saturday, England’s fans would have been praying for Tendulkar to score another century against West Indies to knock them out. As it is, only a billion Indians will be spurring him on.

Almost every Indian more than a few years old will know about Tendulkar. Has any sportsman ever been followed by so many people with so much adulation? It is Tendulkar’s withstanding of this weight of expectation, and his consistency over more than two decades, that sets him apart from all other cricketers.

In the Indian team, three other batsmen — Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman — have played more match-winning, series-turning innings than Tendulkar. But they have only had bowlers and fielders to contend with, not the scrutiny of the world’s second-most populous nation.

When Tendulkar reached 49 Test centuries last year, the scrutiny was too much, and he had a relatively poor home series against New Zealand. He had to go abroad, to South Africa, to achieve his 50th. Now he has 51 Test centuries, and 48 in one-day internationals, after scoring two in this World Cup, against England and South Africa.

As India are assured of their place in the quarter-finals, there will be less pressure on Tendulkar in their last qualifying game than there will be in the knock-out stages.

Indeed it would help India if Tendulkar reached his landmark straight away, because a match stops — or at least India’s scoring rate slows — when he reaches the 90s, and works his way through them in ones and twos.

In any event, whether he scores his 100th hundred in this World Cup, or maybe in England this summer, it will be one of the few statistical achievements worth celebrating — because Tendulkar has raised the bar so high.

Five or ten years ago Tendulkar could not be hailed unequivocally as the greatest batsman of the moment: Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting, jostled for that title. But he can be now. At 37, he blends the boldness of his youth with all his experiences.

Above all, Tendulkar has the finest cricket brain. Everything that is useful to his batting, he notes. This is not only apparent when he bats: even though he can’t really bowl, when he does so he bowls exactly what is right for the circumstances. Not the greatest talent that the sport of cricket has seen, perhaps, but surely the finest mind that has ever been applied to it.

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