Saturday, March 12, 2011

Sachin's ton comes again while travelling

Sachin Tendulkar. This guy's too much. I was returning from some urgent work, driving on the road. Having caught a glimpse of India's good opening stand at Nagpur, I turned my car radio on....and sure enough I hear: 'Sachin Tendulkar on 99...and here comes his 100th run!' Another century. He scores so many of them, you can't miss them tons even on the road!!
But somehow this one sounded familiar…coming back home I thought hard about the reason and now I know why. I had once learnt of another Sachin ton while travelling, that's why. It has happened before. I was travelling when Tendlya got his 2nd ODI ton in 1994 – a month or so after his 1st ODI century that came in the 5th year of his career. I got to know of it waiting at a station somewhere in Southern India…returning from our trip of Chennai-Bengaluru (then Madras-Bangalore)…from a co-passenger waiting like me but strategically armed with a radio.
Next time Sachin does his 100th run of his innings, it would be 100th ton of his career..but no use discussing things that half the world knows (the cricket playing half). I won’t like to be travelling that day – that’s all.
By the way, there is a bit more of travel-cricket combo involved in my date with this particular date – 12th March 2011. As my buddy Pratyush pointed out, this is the day on which 5 years back SA chased down Australia’s 434 in Jo’burg. Here's my excited schoolboyish blogpost on what I experienced through my friends during my travel while that epic chase was unfolding.

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