Zeenews Sports Bureau
Dhaka: Focus is again back on master blaster Sachin Tendulkar’s much-awaited 100th international century as India take on Sri Lanka in their first match of the Asia Cup at Dhaka on Tuesday.
Tendulkar completed a year without a century on Monday as it was on the same day last year (March 12, 2011) that he scored a ton against South Africa. Tendulkar had slammed 111 in their league match in the ICC World Cup. Since then, the world record of 100 centuries kept eluding the batting maestro.
Sachin missed the landmark on few occasions where he almost reached the milestone in the Test series in England and later in Australia. After a long break, Sachin was inducted into the ODI scheme of things for the just-concluded tri-series in Australia. This step was widely speculated as the selector’s desperate attempt to help Tendulkar score a century and release the pressure. Yet again, he failed to score a century in the Commonwealth Bank series, which involved Sri Lanka and Australia. India were eventually knocked out of the tournament.
After the disastrous tour overseas for Team India, there were calls for the heads of senior members in the Indian squad and Sachin’s name was not even spared by the pundits of the game. However, Sachin managed to find a place in the ‘young’ Asia Cup squad even when a few other senior members were ‘rested’. The move raised a few eyebrows.
Meanwhile, veteran batsman Rahul Dravid had announced his retirement from international cricket recently post his poor show in Australian tour. With this, speculation was rife whether Tendulkar would be making a similar announcement soon after completing his hundredth ton. However, he was quick to quash any rumours of the sort, saying that for the time being he is not even considering such thoughts.
Sachin Tendulkar’s illustrious career spanning 23 long years included 51 Test and 48 ODI centuries. Sporting a new hairdo, Sachin would be eying his 100th international century in the Asia Cup, which is the ideal platform for him to record this feat.
First Published: Monday, March 12, 2012, 09:36