Cricket

Two weeks ago, the crowd at the Wankhede was delirious though a fervently anticipated Sachin Tendulkar century didn't materialise. On Friday, the same crowd went home dejected despite Tendulkar crafting his first Twenty20 century, as Kochi Tuskers Kerala busted their party with one of the most memorable chases in IPL history. Two of the world's finest Twenty20 batsmen, Brendon McCullum and Mahela Jayawardene, constructed chalk-and-cheese half-centuries to power Kochi's pursuit of 183. Both perished to Lasith Malinga's deadly deliveries but Kochi, who had stumbled in the final stretch of their first two games, didn't slip up this time as Ravindra Jadeja and Brad Hodge muscled boundaries to finish the game with an over to spare. Tendulkar's effort checked off another item on his ever-shrinking to-do list, and Mumbai ran up a tall total without needing contributions from Rohit Sharma, Andrew Symonds and Kieron Pollard. It was then assumed that the bowl...

Sachin Tendulkar added one more to his already bulging cap of feathers when he was named Wisden's leading cricketer in the world for 2010. Tendulkar enjoyed what was even by his standards an outstanding year in 2010, hitting over 1500 Test runs with 7 hundreds. He also went past the previously unthinkable mark of 50 Test match hundreds in 2010. In ODIs, he became the first batsman to hit the 200-run mark, doing it against the might of the South African attack. The master batsman, who began this month with what he described as his proudest moment when he helped India win the World Cup on his home ground in Mumbai, is the seventh recipient of the Wisden award. Unlike the winners of Wisden's coveted five cricketers of the year, it is possible to be named the world's best in the almanack more than once - and Tendulkar made it an Indian hat-trick, after Test opener Virender Sehwag took the honour in each of the last two years. Tendulkar's citation concludes:...

In a book titled 'SACH,' by Gautam Bhattacharya, Tendulkar revealed that he played under Imran but as a substitute fielder during a festival match at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) in Mumbai. Imran asked him to field in the deep and Tendulkar couldn't complete a catch and going back home, in the local train, constantly grumbled about the captain's field placements. "Absolutely true. I went in as a substitute. Imran was the Pakistan captain. No words were exchanged with him. But yes, I may've got the catch if I was kept slightly ahead (laughs)," Sachin said. The book also revealed that a year before in 1987, Sachin was selected as a promising fast bowler to train at legendary Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee's MRF Pace Academy in Chennai, but was rejected. "I was okay with it. In any case I was not aspiring to become a fast bowler. I thought of myself as a fast bowling all-rounder. That is precisely the reason I had carried my b...

  Since he started his career, we have been waiting that some day, he will bring cup to India. This seems last world cup for Sachin. Will he be able to do this? Will he ever be part of a world cup winning team? Team India wants to win World Cup for Sachin.India opener Gautam Gambhir exuded confidence that the national team would do all it takes to win the upcoming World Cup for a certain Sachin Tendulkar, who will be making his sixth appearance in the quadrennial extravaganza. "I sincerely wish that this would not be Sachin's last World Cup and he would play one more. All members of the Indian side would like to win it for him," Gambhir said.

The Durban loss wouldn't have shocked too many Indian fans, given India's well-known batting woes on bouncy pitches. Suresh Raina struggles to handle extra bounce, Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh get into trouble when seam movement is thrown into the mix, MS Dhoni is not in danger of losing his wicket but doesn't score as fluently against such deliveries and India don't have Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. Virat Kohli has improved on this front - in 2008, Zaheer Khan troubled him with a lot of bouncers in an Irani Cup game - but India are still heavily dependent on Sachin Tendulkar to set the pace. He failed in Durban, and the rest, barring Kohli, couldn't handle the heat.

Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar  attends a training session at Kingsmead Stadium in Durban on January 10, 2011. India and South Africa will play thier One Day International (ODI) on January 12, 2011.

Indian cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar scored his record 50th Test century this week using a damaged and patched-up "lucky charm" bat which has now scored 14 hundreds, a report said on Thursday. Tendulkar's favourite piece of willow showed plenty of war wounds caused by hours of hard-hitting at the crease, with tape across its toe (bottom) and shoulder. But its effectiveness was in no doubt as he scored an unbeaten 111 against South Africa in Centurion to notch up his 50th Test century -- sparking national jubilation and a message of congratulations from the prime minister. Somi Kohli, the owner of Beat All Sports which makes Vampire bats, told the Indian Express that he had insisted on repairing the bat after seeing Tendulkar trying to do the job himself earlier this year. "Sachin's knowledge about bats is phenomenal but I told him that just like doctors are specialists, a willow also needs to be looked after by bat doctors," he said. For m...

Comparisons are odious. But truth be told, there's nothing sports fanatics love more. And so, for all the disclaimers about how it's impossible and unfair to compare greats from different eras, we insist on doing precisely that. One question that's increasingly being asked is whether Sachin Tendulkar is a greater cricketer than Sir Don Bradman. The answer, at least according to netizens who participated in a recent Sydney Morning Herald poll, is a resounding yes - by a whopping margin of 67% to 33%. Even as we were digesting this result, along came an interview by Usain Bolt. The world's fastest man admitted to being a huge Sachin fan. He also said that given a chance, he'd like to ask Sachin "how he has managed to work so hard to stay at the top for so long and what advice he'd give other sportsmen". Clearly then, Sachin is idolized not just by millions of cricket lovers, but also champions of other sports. It's easy to understand why: Af...

NEW DELHI: Sachin is Sachin, the real Bharat Ratna, says the great singer Lata Mangeshkar. Congratulating Sachin on his hitting his 50th Test century, his avid fan says her blessings are always with the 'little master'. "Sachin treats me like his mother and I always pray for her like a mother. I can never forget the day when he called me 'aai '(mother) for the first time. I had never imagined that. It was pleasant surprise for me and I feel blessed to have a son like him," Lata said. "Sachin celebrates his birthday on April 24 which is also my father's (Dinanath Mangeshkar) death anniversary. We never get a chance to meet on that day. On one occasion we had met on April 23rd," she says. She recalls an incident when journalists asked Sachin about his feeling for her to which his reply was "what could one think about his mother". For the 81-year-old Bharat Ratna winner, Sachin is really an ideal son. "I always pray f...

Indian batting icon Sachin Tendulkar, along with Virender Sehwag, on Wednesday found a place in the list of players nominated for an ICC online poll to pick the all-time greatest team as part of one-day cricket's 40th anniversary celebrations. The retired Sourav Ganguly is also part of the list of openers, from which only two would make the final dream team. In the nominees for the Greatest ODI team of all time, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the lone Indian in the list of wicketkeepers. However, no Indian has found a place in the list of middle-order batsmen and fast bowlers, while the legendary Kapil Dev has found a mention in the all-rounders' nomination. Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh have made the list of spinners shortlisted for the dream team.

New Delhi: Sachin Tendulkar was named in India's One-day squad for a five-match series in South Africa, ending a self-imposed 10-month lay-off from limited-overs cricket. Tendulkar, 37, decided to rest from One-Day Internationals after smashing an unprecedented double-century against South Africa in Gwalior on February 24. He missed 22 one-dayers this year, but a return was imminent for the away series in South Africa to prepare for the World Cup in South Asia in February-April. Tendulkar, the world's leading run-getter, became the first batsman to score 50 Test hundreds during the opening Test at Centurion on Sunday. The star batsman was included in a 16-man squad for the limited-overs contests which begin after the three-Test series ends on January 6.

Tendulkar was dethroned from the top spot by Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara in the batting chart, but Indian pacer Zaheer Khan climbed to a career-high third in the bowling list of the ICC Test rankings issued on Monday. Joining Sangakkara in the top 10 are South Africa's AB de Villiers, the current ICC ODI Player of the Year, and England's Jonathan Trott, both players entering the bracket for the first time. De Villiers moved up eight places to fifth while Trott has risen to eighth position. Siddle has risen to 14th after claiming 6-144 in the first Test at the Gabba while ICC Young Player of the Year Finn has broken into the top 20 in 19th place time after his six-wicket-haul. However, Australia's Shane Watson has displaced England's Graeme Swann for fifth place after the 29-year-old scored 77 runs and claimed 1-96 during the first Ashes Test.

MELBOURNE : Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who on Sunday became the only cricketer in history to have scored 50 Test tons, emerged runaway winner over Don Bradman in a poll commissioned by an Australian newspaper on who is the best batsman of all time. In an online poll conducted by the 'Sydney Morning Herald' asking readers to vote for 'The greatest batsman ever: Bradman or Tendulkar?', Tendulkar secured 67 per cent of the votes as against Bradman's 33 per cent. 20768 cricket fans voted. Tendulkar seemed to have got votes from those who took into account that he played in three formats of the game and against 10 countries while Bradman played in only Test matches and primarily in Australia and England only.

He was in a foreign land. At least a land that has stayed the most foreign to India even after their resurgence away from home.He was trying to save a game, trying to kill time, trying to run through the deficit.He had kept his time at the crease even though there is a lot of pressure and responsibility on him. But this was his memorable and valuable centuries among his 50 centuries. Later he spoke of the moment when he reached the milestone. "The first thing obviously I thought of was my father because I wanted to do it for him," he said. "Yesterday was his birthday, and I would like to dedicate this to him." Let us see Sachin saves the test and proves that he is " GOD FOR INDIAN CRICKET ".