File photo of Sachin Tendulkar after scoring his 100th international century in Mirpur, Bangladesh.
Today is the ninth anniversary of Indian cricket maestro Sachin Tendulkar's 100 centuries. It was on this day in Mirpur, Bangladesh, on March 16, 2012, that Sachin scored his landmark 100th ton.
Sachin scored his landmark ton in international cricket at the Asia Cup when he played a 147-ball 114 runs knock to put a decent total of 289 runs on the board. He was aptly supported in the innings by current Indian skipper Virat Kohli, who played a crucial 66 runs knock on the day. Team India, led by MS Dhoni, eventually lost the match to Bangladesh by 5 wickets and four balls to spare.
The 100 was also special for the fact that had been one year in waiting before Sachin realised it.
It took him 138 deliveries, one of the most arduous one-day efforts by the 38-year-old right-hander, to get to the 100 that had become as much a talking point as the team's fortunes in the past 365 days.
The bowler against whom it came about was Shakib Al Hasan and the moment was the fourth delievry of the 43rd over of Indian innings.
Tendulkar clipped it down to square leg and jogged the single, gave a long hard stare to his bat after taking off his helmet before looking heavenward in his signature style.
BCCI also took to Twitter to congratulate the champion on the special day.
Later in the match, a string of strong batting show in the middle order, which included two fifties and two 40-odd innings by the B'desh batsmen, after Tamim Iqbal provided a strong start-up the order with a fluent 70 helped the hosts clinch the fourth match of the competition. Shakib Al Hasan was declared man of the match for playing a knock of 31-ball 49 down the order.
Coming back to Sachin's record, the Little Master, as he is often called, is the only man to hit 100 centuries - 51 in Tests and 49 in ODIs - and also the first man to score a double-century in the 50-over format. Sachin could never score a century in the sole T20 game he played for India but he did manage to score a century for Mumbai Indians.
