This day that year, Sachin Tendulkar scripts history with the 'century' of centuries
Exactly 8 years ago, on the same date, batting great Sachin Tendulkar did the unthinkable to script history in international cricket. It was March 16, 2012, Team India was playing against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup and the God of Cricket - Tendulkar registered his 100th international ton at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.
Tendulkar became the first player to achieve this feat and he is still the only one to do it. It was Sachin's 49th ODI century, which is also the highest by any batsman.
In the game Bangladesh won the toss and opted to bowl against India, the visitors got off to a bad start as the side lost its dependable opener Gautam Gambhir pretty early in the innings.
However, Tendulkar found support in Virat Kohli and the duo formed a 113-run stand. After Kohli's dismissal, Suresh Raina also lent some solidarity to the Indian innings.
Capitalising on Bangladesh's bowling, Tendulkar brought up his 100th ton in the 44th over of the innings.
The Master Blaster went on to play a knock of 114 runs from 147 balls and took India's total to 289/5 in the allotted fifty overs.
After the first innings of the match, Sachin did have a few words to spare.
"Dreams do come true. I waited for 22 years to win the World Cup and so my advise to youngsters would be to chase their dreams. I'm glad to have got it now," said Tendulkar during the innings break.
"When I got the 99th century, no one spoke about it. I guess it was the media which started it. Everywhere I went people were talking about my 100th hundred," he said.
However, Bangladesh played a dampener as the side chased down India's total in the final over of the innings to register a victory by five wickets.
Tendulkar had made his debut for India at the age of 16 in 1989.
He aggregated 34,357 runs across formats, which is 6,000 runs more than the second-placed former Sri Lanka cricketer Kumar Sangakkara.
Regarded as one of the greatest batsmen ever, Tendulkar holds the record of being the highest run-scorer of all time in international cricket, having notched up 18,426 runs in ODIs and 15,921 runs in Test matches.
The Master Blaster ended his career with 51 centuries in ODIs, while he had 49 in the longest format of the game.
