The most remarkable thing about Sachin Tendulkar is not the number of centuries he has made for India, but the ones that got away. He has passed 90 on 26 occasions without getting to three figures, including being out on 99 three times. Think how good he could have been if he applied himself.
Now, after making 111 in India’s defeat by South Africa on Saturday, the Mumbai maestro is on 99 again, but he will surely not end his career one short of a unique century of centuries for his country in Test matches and one-day internationals.
The only doubt is whether the historic hundred will come in India’s final group match of this World Cup on Sunday or a later match. It might be better for India if Tendulkar has to wait: in three of the past four one-day matches when he has made a hundred, India have failed to win.
His work on Saturday was undone by an appalling collapse: 253 for one when the batting powerplay was taken with 12 overs remaining, India failed to reach 300 as nine wickets fell for 29 runs and South Africa won in the final over.
Against England earlier in the tournament, Tendulkar made 120 but India failed to bat their 50 overs and the match was tied. Throw in the match against Australia in Hyderabad at the end of 2009, when Tendulkar made 175 but India lost by three runs, and one could ask whether their best chance of success is for Tendulkar to lose his wicket early so that the rest of the team pull their fingers out.
Advertisement
“Win it for Sachin” has been India’s theme of Tendulkar’s sixth World Cup. “The World Cup can be the biggest gift from the team to him,” Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain, said before it began. Yet Tendulkar wants to win it himself as a gift to India.
At the age of 37 he is in the form of his life. His batting average in Tests since the start of 2010 is 82; in one-day internationals it is 70. If it were not for the neatness of retiring after winning the World Cup in his home city on April 2 — and Tendulkar has not tempted fate by making any such suggestion — he could go on for many years.
A 100th hundred would set an almost unbeatable landmark, arguably more imposing than Don Bradman’s career batting average, Usain Bolt’s 100 metres best or any other achievement in sport.
Look at the competition: Ricky Ponting, in second place and near the end of his career, has 68 centuries for Australia and may not reach 70; others will struggle even to get to 40.
It marks Tendulkar’s longevity and stamina as much as his prowess. Bradman, whose career was almost as long but interrupted by war, made 29 hundreds in only 52 Tests but would he have retained his hunger for runs and his fitness — let alone his average — if he had played as many limited-overs internationals as Tendulkar, who has played 450 as well as 177 Tests?
Advertisement
Demand for tickets for India’s next match, against West Indies in Madras (Chennai) on Sunday, will be immense, as it will be for their quarter-final. Mathematically, India could still fail to qualify, but it would require Bangladesh beating South Africa, England beating West Indies and West Indies beating India, the last two fairly comprehensively to eliminate India’s superior run-rate.
If the rest of the team played like Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag — who has made 327 runs this tournament, three more than Tendulkar — it would be no problem.
But the failures of the rest of the order and the need to pick only four bowlers to allow for the batsmen’s unreliability has created that rare Indian emotion: doubt.
Three weeks ago, Ravi Shastri, the former India all-rounder who is now a commentator, was holding court in a Nagpur hotel bar. “If India don’t win the World Cup this year with this group of players, they can forget about winning it for the next 15 to 20 years,” he said. Yet Tendulkar cannot win it on his own.
After the defeat by South Africa, an embarrassed Dhoni rebuked his team-mates for giving away their wickets with ambitious, flamboyant strokes.
Advertisement
“You don’t play for the crowd, you play for the country,” he said. Maybe he should have added his earlier refrain: play for Sachin.