The Hindu : Sport : Tendulkar reaches a landmark scoreboard

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Saturday, Jun 30, 2007
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Tendulkar reaches a landmark

Ted Corbett

India wins, but after some anxious moments

— PHOTO: AFP

GONE: Indian wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni celebrates the dismissal of South Africa’s Morne van Wyk on Friday.

BELFAST: Sachin Tendulkar put in a sprint finish to reach the marathon total of 15,000 one-day runs with panache and a touch of bravado. This moment of history came in front of no more than 200 spectators on the Civil Service ground of a city that used to be a cricket desert until the Irish produced World Cup shocks. He still contrived to make the occasion memorable.

From the start, as India set out to top South Africa’s 226 in the second one-dayer of the Future Cup, the little master clearly decided he would go hard for the 50 runs he needed. He did not want to dawdle to this unprecedented aggregate; besides that has never been his way.

He began by square cutting and pulling fours off Makhaya Ntini and when Andre Nel tried to impose his giant frame on the pitch Tendulkar strode into his shadow. On this day of all days he would not be intimidated.

Good start

By the 15th over he had 37 out of 60 in the opening stand with Sourav Ganguly; a slap through the covers off Hall took him to 41, a tickle to leg gave him two more, Nel tried to run him out, he drove in a nervy way at a ball wide to the off and then, with a mighty soaring hook off Nel he was 49.

Next ball he dashed frantically for a single and that dash caused four overthrows. He had batted 64 balls, and hit nine fours as well as the six, his 160th of his one-day career.

He went on to 93 with a series of cavalier shots but played on to the new off-spinner Thandi Tshabalala, a few runs short of a century as he was in the first match.

Ganguly’s dismissal, with just 93 needed, sparked the fall of four wickets for eight runs in 28 balls. Perhaps India was too involved in Sachin’s big milestone but Yuvraj swept Andrew Hall for six with 13 balls left and India won by four wickets with five balls remaining to tie the series.

Dour batsmen

By contrast South Africa has always had dour batsmen: Eric Rowan, Kepler Wessels and Gary Kirsten for instance. Morne Van Wyk is clearly of the same mind as he showed by batting 41 overs for 82 out of 168.

Miraculously, after 24 hours of heavy showers, the ground was dry enough for a prompt start and yet there was still enough life around for Dravid to choose fielding as the preferred option.

It was three overs before a run came from the bat, only two were scored before AB de Villiers was run out and when Jacques Kallis was bowled the score was seven in the sixth over.

Dramatic run-out

The run-out was wondrously dramatic. De Villiers set off down the pitch, saw the danger, turned and appeared to the naked eye to have made his ground when Dravid broke the wicket. But by the sixth replay there were signs that his bat might be over the line but that it was in the air. Umpire Aleem Dar had no doubt.

When Kallis, the match-winner three days ago, was out Van Wyk, in his fourth one-dayer and Herschelle Gibbs had no choice but to defend and when Gibbs was out to Zaheer Khan’s third ball of his second spell with just 46 scored off 14 overs Jean-Paul Duminy had to defend all the harder.

South Africa: M. van Wyk c Dhoni b Yuvraj 82, A.B. de Villiers (run out) 0, J. Kallis b R.P. Singh 2, H. Gibbs c Karthik b Zaheer 17, J.P. Duminy c Dravid b Yuvraj 40, M. Boucher (not out) 55, A. Hall b Yuvraj 17, A. Nel (not out) 1; E xtras (lb-5, w-5, nb-2): 12. Total (for six wkts in 50 overs): 226.

Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-7, 3-46, 4-131, 5-168, 6-220.

India bowling: Zaheer 9-2-29-1, R.P. Singh 6-1-21-1; Sharma 7-0-38-0, Chawla 8-0-41-0, Powar 10-0-46-0, Tendulkar 1-0-10-0; Yuvraj 9-0-36-3.

India: S. Ganguly c Gibbs b Langeveldt 42, S. Tendulkar b Tshabalala 93, R. Dravid c & b Langeveldt 2, Yuvraj (not out) 49, M.S. Dhoni b Ntini 0, D. Karthik (not out) 32; Extras: (lb-2, w-7) 9; Total: (for 4 wkts in 49.1 overs) 227 .

Fall of wickets: 1-134, 2-140, 3-140, 4-142.

South Africa bowling: Ntini 10-1-37-1, Langeveldt 10-1-43-2, Nel 10-0-41-0, Hall 10-0-54-0, Tshabalala 8-2-42-1, Kallis 1.1-0-8-0.

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