After scoring his 34th ton to equal his idol, Sunil Gavaskar’s record, Sachin Tendulkar had to wait for almost a year to step away from the shared glory to emerge as the sole leader of the list.
The second Test of the Sri Lanka tour of India series saw the hosts bat first after the captain Dravid won the toss. Fog ate a few minutes of the play forcing a delayed start. The conditions were difficult to bat on, and India lost two early wickets, both the openers Gambhir and Dravid cheaply. Sehwag was ruled out of the Test because of fever, Yuvraj Singh replaced him. That brought Sachin to the crease before he would’ve thought. Along with Laxman, Sachin added slow but valuable runs. There was a hint right from ball one that today was the day. Laxman was dismissed after scoring 69. Sachin then joined hands with his familiar partner and a friend Ganguly, who’s selection created a controversy. The pair not only had to fight the poor condition but also Muralitharan who was destroying the Indian batsmen.
After getting into the nineties, the bad light was affecting the view yet the players chose to continue. Sachin struggled a bit to play but conquered. He took more than ten minutes to get from 92 to 100. The surprisingly good crowd at Kotla was waiting for the moment, was on their knees. Moving to 99, The restless Sachin made himself calm, took the guard to play.
Even with the crowd noise, one could’ve heard his heartbeat outside because it’s been a long wait. At something around 4 pm, there it was. The moment the whole nation was waiting for. Touching one towards the leg side, an animated Sachin took a single for his 35th hundred.
He jumped, then raised his bat to the skies, looked up and held that pose as if he was posing. Later touched his chest with the bat. He then turned to acknowledge the crowd which had crying faces later turned to his dressing room and raised his bat. The Indian team members were all out jumping in joy while Kumble was capturing the moment with his camera. Muralitharan, who later went on to pick seven wickets in that innings was the second man to shake hands with Sachin. The day’s play got concluded with that as the lights dropped.
India scored 290 in that innings. In reply, Sri Lanka managed only 230, thanks to Kumble’s 6 wicket haul. Batting for the second time, Dravid made Pathan open with Gambhir and the all-rounder top-scored with 93. Dravid who was back to his middle order scored a fifty. India declared 375/6 with Yuvraj Singh unbeaten at 77 and Dhoni at 51. In return, Kumble once again rattled the visitors picked up four wickets as India won the match by 188 runs.
Shame on Ntini’s teammates: Darren Sammy