Sachin Tendulkar – First Innings as opener In India’s tour to NZ in 1993-94, Sachin’s first tour to the kiwi-land, and his eleventh ODI series overseas, and after having lost the first ODI at Napier, facing sterner test at the breezy Auckland, offering breezy swinging conditions. India had their task cut out and the previous night before the match, one of the team’s regular openers, Sidhu had broken his nose and injured his neck when he went out on shopping after slipping down on the roads in NZ. The team manager and the captain Azharuddin had their share of problems as a loss meant NZ take unassailable lead in the series. That night Sachin walked up to the team manager and said to him, being aware of the opener slot being free, that, he would offer to open the batting, to which the manager obviously hesitated. Maybe the youngest player in the team, then, wasn’t up to the mark the manager thought. His reason for hesitation was that “Sachin, we don’t want to lose your wicket taking that risk”. Sachin’s reply was, “Please give me one chance and if I fail, I will never ever get back to you citing the same”, and this was enough to convince the team, as though they had another player to open the innings. The next morning, the Indian captain Azharuddin won the toss and promptly elected to bowl first. NZ were skittled out for 140 odd and the Indian seamers were too hot to handle. In the lunch break, the team discussion was that we would achieve the 100 run mark by the 25th over. Tendulkar began cautiously against Danny Morrison and Pringle. After 3 overs, India reached 10/0, the other opener being Ajay Jadeja. Then started the innings, really, that showed what it means to bat in the limited overs version of cricket. Morrison and Gavin Larsen were treated like Nets bowlers. In one over against Larsen, Sachin smashed him around for 26 runs in that over.India lost Jadeja in the 9th over with the score reading 61 and Jadeja having scored only 18 of them. His buddy Kambli joined him and showed no mercy against the NZ seamers. The achrekar’s disciples were displaying breath-taking strokes down the ground in the V. India reached 100 in just 12.4 overs, exactly in double quick time as it was decided in the team meeting during lunch break and Sachin having scored 75 odd runs off those. When Sachin got out at 82 off just 49 balls, finally, the team’s score read 117 off just 14 overs. 15 fours and 2 sixes of pure technical brilliance and genius of kid’s fresh brain resulted in one of the great innings in ODI cricket then. In the NZ innings, only 8 fours were scored and only 2 sixes were hit totally. Complete domination and destroyal of the kiwi pacers meant that India had got back alive in the series. Sachin Tendulkar received his 7thM.O.M award, even before reaching the age of 20. Probably another world record. When the regular opener returned back from his injury for the next match, there was only one change in the batting order. Sidhu was pushed down to one drop. Sachin scored 63 and 40 in his next couple of innings and that would seal his place as the top of the Indian ODI batting order and probably a turning- point for cricket to have seen him become the Greatest Player ever and the only match winner that India had during the 90’s and this is an understatement. Article By @S@.....!!
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:15:17 +0000
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