Still 2.5 years later when I watch this clip....

[Deleted_User_1]

I keep thinking what if.....what if India had won this test? SRT started off beautifully in this tour, but kept getting out at inopportune moments. Of course, it did not help that wickets kept falling at the other end. He was in top form till the WC, but struggled in England. During this Aus tour he did not struggle, his form was good, he was playing good shot, feet moving well, but with this lost opportunity and the fact that there was no support at the other end (along with the burden of 100th 100) wore him down. I feel like the last 2 years would have gone a different way had he won this game for India with support from 1 or 2 batsmen at the other end. Unfortunately it did not happen. SIGH! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMyLxqvuEFk

[Austin 3:!6]

At 1.16 on the video, Bill Lawry - "He is away...only Champion can do that" Pure gold. Alas we will never get a batsman like Sachin and a commie like Lawry again. Get used to Rohit Sharma and Arun Lal. Those days will never be back :((

[nevada]

What if he had skipped IPL which began barely 3-4 days after the world cup? What if he had played the WI series that happened after the IPL instead of skipping it? What if he had retired with 99 hundreds and retained his respect instead of playing ODIs suddenly just for the sake of the record?

[goose]

Very true. For all the talk about him carrying on two years too long he was our form player for the Aussie tour and most of the Eng tour.

[Crookbond]

Deja Vu http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=305255

[Deleted_User_1]

Deja Vu http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=305255

I know. :--D I can't get over it. What a golden chance to be a champ! I feel like this is where things started going awry for SRT. Don't know why since he was playing well. I guess that is fate.

[Deleted_User_1]

What if he had skipped IPL which began barely 3-4 days after the world cup? What if he had played the WI series that happened after the IPL instead of skipping it? What if he had retired with 99 hundreds and retained his respect instead of playing ODIs suddenly just for the sake of the record?

Yep, I can't get over the fact that he did not retire after the WC. He should definitely have retired after the Aus tour. He played well in the first two tests. Looked good in all 4 innings, but then from 3rd test onwards it was all downhill. Who cares about 100 100s when your legacy is taking a hit! :((

[veer]

At 1.16 on the video, Bill Lawry - "He is away...only Champion can do that" Pure gold. Alas we will never get a batsman like Sachin and a commie like Lawry again. Get used to Rohit Sharma and Arun Lal. Those days will never be back :((

that's not Bill Lawry.. that's Mark Taylor I think.

[SLICKR392]

Very true. For all the talk about him carrying on two years too long he was our form player for the Aussie tour and most of the Eng tour.

Just 1 Test in England, IIRC. It was dominated by Dravid but he failed miserbly in Aus. @Topic The WC final, his home ground, averaging 57 + 99 tons. Couldn't have gone any better. He looked good against the Aussies in both series. The last 2; home and away.

[Austin 3:!6]

that's not Bill Lawry.. that's Mark Taylor I think.

Lol no...that is Bill Lawry.

[Texan]

Just. Not. Good. Enough.

[CSK Fan]

Yep' date=' I can't get over the fact that he did not retire after the WC. He should definitely have retired after the Aus tour. He played well in the first two tests. Looked good in all 4 innings, but then from 3rd test onwards it was all downhill. Who cares about 100 100s when your legacy is taking a hit! :(([/quote'] I don't see anywhere his legacy being hit except by some jilted fans here who run some statsguru code and then arrange it by descending order of average After retirement, he has got the highest civilian award in India, has become a MP for the country and has been declared player of the decade. Yes, his legacy has been hit indeed Maybe, time for you to get over the 'fact' Also, I have put this up before, but players like Kohli, Pujara, all openly claim that their smooth transistion to international levels was much to do with mentorship from the senior players and Sachin. We all saw what happened to West Indies batting once Lara retired (on a high and with legacy intact) when he could have stayed on and groomed young batsmen. West Indies batting has still not recovered from it and all we see now are random sloggers. There were some batsmen with very good potential when Lara retired but they soon went to dogs. Do you really think it is just random co-incidence that our batsmen make such great transitions from domestic to international, while our bowling does not? There is no substitute for the learnings you can have with Sachin at the other end or in the nets If it helped groom our young players and made them ready for international cricket, it is worth a hit on the legacy and a drop in batting average. No other upcoming players will have the same luxury of learning from the greatest of the game

[CSK Fan]

What if he had skipped IPL which began barely 3-4 days after the world cup? What if he had played the WI series that happened after the IPL instead of skipping it? What if he had retired with 99 hundreds and retained his respect instead of playing ODIs suddenly just for the sake of the record?

Yes, bharat ratna, player of the decade. Of course, he did not retain his respect according to some Pakistan fans and even fewer Indian fans

[velu]

hi MTC

[Raghav_12]

This is what Cricinfo had posted after this innings.

Tendulkar's promise of a glorious summer Sachin Tendulkar batted with fluency and control to help India break the trend of batting failures that had blighted their start to overseas tours in recent times Sidharth Monga at the MCG December 27, 2011 Comments: 87 | Text size: A | A Sachin Tendulkar drives on his way to a half-century, Australia v India, 1st Test, Melbourne, 2nd day, December 27, 2011 Sachin Tendulkar's fluent batting at one end ensured Australia weren't allowed to take control of the game © Getty Images Enlarge Related Links Players/Officials: Rahul Dravid | Sachin Tendulkar Matches: Australia v India at Melbourne Series/Tournaments: India tour of Australia Teams: Australia | India Just before tea on day two of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. James Pattinson and Ben Hilfenhaus had bowled with serious pace and menace. Pattinson in particular. Rahul Dravid had struggled, but he had hung on. Virender Sehwag had sizzled, but he had been bowled. Every head at the stadium, all 52,858 of them, plus the others working on the match, turned towards the change rooms. There was a delay of about 30 seconds before they saw Sachin Tendulkar, and gave him a reception to rival Ricky Ponting's. The second ball Tendulkar faced he inside-edged. Safe. A sigh. Michael Clarke brought on Michael Hussey to bowl the last over before the break. Tendulkar was playing to block out this over, and Hussey's slow-mediums could be dangerous. He has a history with those. He bat-padded, but it didn't carry to a fielder. Another sigh. The MCG was abuzz. Australia could sense they were back into this one. Dravid had not been at his best; he was just clinging on. Tendulkar had made an iffy start. India were still 214 behind. Many times before this, sides have come back immediately after a Sehwag dismissal. It's just the change of tempo that is huge, which leaves an opening for bowling sides. India needed somebody to take charge of the situation. The tea break arrived at the right time. Twenty minutes later, Clarke went to home boy Peter Siddle. The first ball was a bouncer, over the stumps. Tendulkar arched back, for there was no room. He had to use the wrists to make up for the lack of room. He did. And he guided it over slip. If this were a cricket documentary, I would tell you the rest of the story - at least a major part of it - through an almost fast-forward video of one shot merging into another: another cut behind square, a drive on a bent knee, an on-the-up drive through extra cover, a punch straight down the ground, a glance off the pads, a slog-sweep placed expertly in front of deep backward square, another upper-cut for four. It all happened that fast. Yet it wasn't an awe-inspiring Sehwag fast. You could savour this. Usually when batsmen score this fast in a Test - he was 54 off 62 at one stage - the bowler's faces tell a story. Here the story was happening at the batsman's end. There was the class, there was the innovation. There was the high elbow, there was the arched back. There was the glorious sun that wouldn't set till quarter to nine. During that period it seemed he couldn't find fielders even if he tried to. India had well and truly taken charge. Dravid was allowed the space to struggle, and hasn't he earned it after a fabulous year? Test cricket, though, doesn't go at the same pace all the time. Clarke finally found some control on proceedings through Lyon, David Warner and deeper fields. Tendulkar settled down too. Not in a playing-for-stumps sort of way, but in a long-innings sort of way. The singles were on offer; he kept taking them. Inevitably the talk of the hundredth hundred reached fever pitch. Not that there hasn't been talk. There has been talk all through the year. There has been talk it plays on his mind. However, if you had been deprived of cricket all year long and if you were dropped in at the MCG today, you wouldn't have guessed the man had scored 99 international hundreds, had been stuck there for nine months, had been out in 90s twice, and came from a country that could think of little else. Tendulkar here was setting the tone for the summer; if the hundredth was on his mind, it didn't show. India's last four tours have all begun with batting failures; he was trying to make sure this one wasn't going to. He knew Dravid was having an off day, and it's only a few like Dravid who come out of such off days unconquered, but if Tendulkar hadn't scored that fast from the other end Australia could have cornered India. Tendulkar fell to a superb spell of bowling, when two Victorians, Peter Siddle and Pattinson, chugged in for another spell of testing fast deliveries in front of their home crowd, just before stumps. He left India needing another brief period of recovery if they needed to take full control. That was the imperfection in an otherwise perfect innings. But four years after every Australian ground had bid him farewell, he also made us a promise of another glorious summer.

But things went into totally opposite direction that innings onward. :((. Only if Indian lower middle order and lower order had shown some fight or Dravid (??) had held onto that Hussey's catch in second innings. Things would have been completely different.

[vamos_rafa]

Totally agree sir. Even I can't get over this one test match. He had everything under control but things went downhill where otherwise history could have been rewritten :((

[Roshanrocks]

Let it go guys... let it go... was in the past...

[gaurav92]

LOL I though the Lord's Test in 2011 could have been saved as well :D

[Temujin Khaghan]

Rohit Sharma will score 99 hundreds, take a 1 year break, act in a bollywood movie which will break Avatar BO record and then come back to cricket and hit the 100th century.

[gaurav92]

Rohit Sharma will score 99 hundreds' date=' take a 1 year break, act in a bollywood movie which will break Avatar BO record and then come back to cricket and hit the 100th century.[/quote'] :WTF: Where did this come from ?