thalaiva :notworthy:
this would actually increase his thirst i believe...
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thalaiva :notworthy:
this would actually increase his thirst i believe...
With this 100 today(actually 50 itself), Tendulkar makes it to 250 scores of "50 or above" in an International game.
Tests: 51 59
ODI's: 47 93
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffMJp..._order&list=UL
sachin tendulkar 148 vs Sri Lanka Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai December 1997.flv
Another source: Sachin Tendulkar 120 runs - India vs England World Cup 2011 [High Quality]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyYZxYAdIQk
8 years ago on this very same day Tendulkar Possibly played his best knock against Pakistan. Remembering the day Today.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/501138.html
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
Sachin and Murali: two old masters still in their prime
Watching Sachin Tendulkar and Muttiah Muralitharan in front of their home crowds is one of the great World Cup pleasures
Sachin Tendulkar hits a boundary during India's World Cup match against England. Photograph: Tom Shaw/Getty Images
MAESTROS AT WORK
"About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters." WH Auden had it right all along. Just ask Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson, who suffered terribly at the hands of an old master last Sunday, their best efforts weighed, found wanting and then dispatched to the boundary rope by Sachin Tendulkar. "How well they understood its human position," Auden wrote. "How it takes place while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking duly along." Or indeed screaming, shouting, prancing, dancing and waving flags.
I wrote about Tendulkar's innings yesterday, though I would have waxed on for far longer if it had not been for that pesky second-innings denouement. It was a supreme innings, from its stately, serene start through to its violent finish. Of Tendulkar's 47 ODI centuries, only two have been made against England, and neither won India the match. His only ton other came in 2002 at Chester-le-Street, in a game that was rained off. There have still been plenty of good innings, of course: Anderson and Swann join a lineage of English bowlers who have been humbled by Tendulkar that runs right back to John Emburey and Paul Jarvis in 1993, when he made 82 not out in Jaipur. But it has been a curious quirk of his career, a rare blemish, that in one-day cricket English fans had not often got see him strike that familiar pose, bat raised in one hand, helmet raised in the other, head tilted towards the sky in thanks and, perhaps, relief at another ton. It was a privilege to be there last Sunday.
Across the Palk Straight in Sri Lanka the only cricketer currently playing who could be said to share similar status to Sachin, Muttiah Muralitharan, has also been performing some equally awe-inspiring, if considerably less spectacular, deeds. Murali has bowled 108 balls so far in this tournament, and no one has managed to hit a single one of them to the boundary. He has given up one scoring stroke that went for three, a mis-hit by Colins Obuya that shot away to fine leg off the top-edge, and three more that went for two each. Otherwise each and every one of the 57 runs he has conceded have come in singles.
Partly, you guess, this is just because the opposition batsmen have reconciled themselves to the futility of attempting anything more ambitious than pushing the ball to one side of the wicket or the other. The one man who was young and impetuous enough to attempt to collar Murali's bowling was Umar Akmal, and he was duly caught at midwicket. So long, Umar, and thanks for all the flash. David Obuya tried something similar today, and the same fate befell him. Those have been his only two wickets so far. The cannier batsmen have learned that it takes self-restraint to play Murali on his home patch; they have to reconcile themselves to accepting that they take their three runs an over and by thankful for them. Done well, as it was by Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq during their stand of 108, and this cat-and-mouse play can be engrossing to watch. Done badly, as it was by the Obuya's brothers in today's game against Kenya, and it is as torturous as watching a toenail being pulled.
Looking at the trajectories of Murali's spell on HawkEye is like staring into a jerry-rigged fuse box. You see nothing but a tangle of blue, red, green and yellow lines. Every one of his deliveries land in the space of a square foot or two, but other than that each is completely different from the other. The point of release, his position on the crease, the extent and direction of the turn, the amount of bounce, the dip in the flight - Murali twiddles with all these variables like an engineer on a sound-deck adjusting levels.
The ball may not fizz and hum as it rips through the air any more, but he compensates for that with the guile and cunning he has accumulated over his career. He is no longer Sri Lanka's strike bowler – it has been over two years since he last took more than two wickets in a ODI innings – but he has taken on a different role. He contains and creates pressure which can be exploited by the bowlers at the other end. Wickets are the currency of cricket, but these days Murali hoards dot balls like a miser. Just like Tendulkar, he has traded his youthful vibrancy for the more pragmatic and calculating approach that comes with a complete understanding of what is required for the situation.
Watching these two old masters at work in front of their home crowds is going to be one of the great pleasures of this tournament, so long as you can stomach the suffering they will inflict along the way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011...lkar-andy-bull