Sachin Tendulkar felt relief yesterday after achieving the long awaited 100th international hundred in India’s 5-wicket loss to hosts Bangladesh in the Asia Cup on Friday.
“I have to admit I was relieved. This is now out of the way and I can start a new chapter. It was possibly the toughest phase of my life,” said the man who now owns the most unprecedented milestone imaginable in this sport. “There was so much hype and attention about the 100th hundred. I thought I possibly batted the best in my life; got close in a couple of games but I couldn’t achieve that. There are no specific reasons for that. At times I was luckless. Sometimes you need to have luck on your side to cross the final hurdle.”
When asked to pick the toughest bowler he has faced, Tendulkar had a tough time naming one particular great bowler. “It is tough, I can name at least 25 different bowlers. How do you differentiate between Anil Kumble, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralidaran, Glenn McGrath, Malcolm Marshall and Curtly Ambrose?”
To pick his favourite innings, Tendulkar went back to 1992 when his first hundred against Australia took the world by storm. “It would be Perth I would say. Something that means a lot to me is the hundred at Chennai (against England) in 2008. That was really really important to me because of what had happened before that. Yes, the first 100 (at Manchester). Chennai (against Pakistan in 1999) and Sydney when I scored 241 [in 2004],” he said.
-With The Daily Star input
