Centuries - Now and then!

Well recently, I came across Sachin Tendulkar's 50^th ton in test match cricket and just though from where to where is the records heading towards. I can just recall the 34 centuries by the Indian batting great Sunil Gavaskar whose record was for a change broken by a non Sachin Tendulkar when Brian Lara scored his 35^th test hundred against one of the eight test playing nations whose name is not important at the moment. This was some 5 -6 years down the lane. And now, Sunil Gavaskar's record stands in the 6^th place behind Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and Kallis.

Likewise, Sunil Gavaskar was the first and the only one until the above mentioned ones took his place and then overtook him to score 30 centuries in tests or more. Sunil Gavaskar was the only non colored player to have scored more than 30 hundreds in tests. The other batsman to cross 30 hundreds was Steve Waugh who had worn the yellow color. As a matter of fact, the color dress in one day cricket was introduced in the 1992 world cup played in Australia/New Zealand while Sunil Gavaskar retired from all forms of cricket in 1987. Since then, all the aforementioned players have worn their team color.

Now, with totally six players joining the 30+ hundred club, shifting our focuses on batsmen who have scored 20 or more hundreds, the list is even more long with batsmen from all teams barring Zimbabwe and Bangladesh being excluded from the list. The 30+ club includes 3 batsmen from India, 1 from South Africa, 1 from West Indies and 3 from Australia, with teams like Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England and Pakistan missing out from the list. However, the 20s club does not exclude batsmen from these countries with the list going endless with as many as 33 players from 8 nations making it to the club.

Coming to the one dayers, 17 centuries by Desmond Haynes was the highest ever scored which stood for almost a decade and now, that figure stands in the 10^th position jointly held by Kallis and is ever decreasing. Similar to the fate of 30+ hundreds scores in tests, 20+ centuries in one dayers stand at number six with Jayasuriya, Sachin Tendulkar, Ponting, Ganguly, Saeed Anwar and Gibbs having achieved that. Keeping in mind these figures, there might be more number of batsmen in the days to come to score atleast 40 hundreds in tests and 30 in one dayers. Of course, very few might do a combo of 50 hundreds in both forms of the game.

Loopholes in SRT's cricketing life

Well hardly anyone of you would like to read something bad about the world's best batsmen in the first two formats of the game of cricket. But, if anyone wants to come across a batsman who has absolutely no loopholes at all, there has to be only a dream as such. And, Sachin Tendulkar is no exception when it comes to the world of loopholes. Even this great batsman possess few loopholes and ones that can hardly be forgiven. The first thing that can be pointed out would be that he holds the record for being one of the worst captains of India ever.

The only two trophies that Sachin Tendulkar has been able to achieve in his one year long international career as a captain is the titan cup in 1996 which India won over South Africa, not before losing 3 matches to the same in the league stages of the tournament. And then, there was a bilateral series win over Pakistan in 1997 which India won by a maregin 4-1. In his 20 year long international career in cricket, Sachin Tendulkar could not hold the captain's tag for more than a year or so. Of course, Anil Kumble also enjoyed the tag only for a year but for the wrong reasons.

Anil Kumble was under estimated by the selection and was forced to hand over one to Kumble when Ganguly retired and Dravid also followed suit when he retired from captaincy. And then, as mentioned above, Sachin Tendulkar was no longer eligible for the job and there was no other player in the team but Kumble to take the honors. Adding to this debacle, Sachin Tendulkar can never be forgiven for throwing away his wicket so cheaply in the finals of the world cup in 2003 held at South Africa. Sachin Tendulkar got out the fifth ball giving a cheap catch to Glenn McGrath.

Sachin Tendulkar's wicket was the most awaited wicket in the finals and Sachin throwing it away so cheaply speaks about the batsman's caliber in tough times though many a times he has proved to be otherwise. So was the case in the match played at Chennai where Saeed Anwar scored 194 in the Independence cup 1997 where once again Sachin Tendulkar returned back after scoring a boundary. Sachin Tendulkar has failed to score a triple hundred in tests though he has scored a double hundred in one dayers. Well, let me stop here before you guys curse me for I can read your curses as well.