Today Sachin has become the highest run getter in Tests and he already holds that record in ODIs as well. I am not sure whether there was any other player holding these two records together in the recent past.
He now has scored over 28,000 international runs (12,000+ in tests and 16,000+ in ODIs) including 81 hundreds (39 in tests and 42 in ODIs).
Looking back at his test record, I would have liked Sachin to have scored some more runs against the South Africans, he averages just over 35 per innings against them and that is his lowest against any time. Other than that he has one of the best test records ever scoring almost at the same rate in home and away matches and in fact scoring more hundreds away than at home.
Before he retires from tests, I would like Sachin to complete some formalities against the minnows: a hundred in Zimbabwe, the only country where he has not scored a test 100 and complete 1000 runs against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, so that he would have 1000 or more runs against all test playing countries. Since Zimbabwe is not currently playing tests, I doubt whether this would happen at all.
When did I become a Sachin fan? It was in 1989. He was in news before his first tour to Pakistan and I thought this guy is the most hyped player and I really didnt like to hear anything more about him. Then I saw live, an unofficial one day match where he hit my then favorite leggie Abdul Qadir for four sixes and from that moment on till this day when he overtook Lara, I just admire Sachin and he has given me so many wonderful memories watching him.
Since he has overtaken test record, I just want to list the top 5 test innings that I like of him:
- 119* v England at Manchester, 1990
- 114* v Australia at Perth, 1992
- 136 v Pakistan at Chennai, 1999
- 193 v England at Leeds, 2002
- 155* v Australia at Chennai, 1998
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