Decoding the 100th: Was Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international hundred scored in a selfish cause?

Under normal circumstances, an Asia Cup league stage match will not warrant a place in history. Under normal circumstances, an India versus Bangladesh encounter will not be remembered for posterity. But then, on 16th March 2012 in an Asia Cup encounter against Bangladesh, Sachin Tendulkar scored a single off the 4th ball of the 44th over, and that single took him to his 100th international hundred. And, this hundred from Tendulkar is by no means a ‘normal’ one. And, it is due to this monumental feat that this match will never be forgotten.

Yes. A hundred hundreds. To understand the magnitude of Tendulkar’s feat let us delve into this fact. The next batsman with the most international hundreds is Aussie batting gladiator Ricky Ponting, and he is 29 centuries away from Tendulkar’s tally. And, while Virat Kohli has scored 70 international centuries and looks like the only batsman who can challenge Tendulkar, scoring 31 more tons will be a Herculean task, even for a legendary batsman like Kohli.

Sachin Tendulkar’s ton that occupies a special place in history

Now, it is important that we do a little background check before delving into Tendulkar’s 100th international hundred. The ‘Little Master’ had scored his 99th ton on 12th March 2011 and had gone more than a year without adding to his century tally in international cricket. He had gone 21 Test innings and 12 ODI innings without a ton in that period. The master batsman had scored 8 international fifties during this period, but a century remained elusive.

And so, Tendulkar entered the Asia Cup encounter against Bangladesh with pressure mounting on him to get to the milestone. The Bangladesh side won the toss and decided to field first, and out walked Tendulkar in search of his 100th ton. Even when he was almost 39, Tendulkar’s willow wielded magic. A cracking cover drive allowed Tendulkar to get off the mark, and he followed that up with another ‘textbook’ backfoot punch off the bowling of Mashrafe Mortaza.

And then, came the shot of the match from the batting colossus. To a perfectly good delivery from Shahadat Hossain, Tendulkar got onto the backfoot and found the gap with perfection. Even when he was into the twilight of his career, the grace was evident in his stroke-making. Tendulkar continued to milk the Bangladesh bowling. While he was not explosive, he was striking the ball well.

When Hossain bowled short and gave him a little width, the batting legend cut him past point. Tendulkar got to his half-century with a dazzling cover drive off Shakib Al Hasan. To a ball that was pitched on the middle stump, Tendulkar gave himself room and lofted the left-arm spinner over extra cover.

After he got to his fifty, Tendulkar showed no urgency. While he scored a few boundaries, he did not take too many risks. To a short delivery from Mahmudullah, Tendulkar rocked onto the back foot and pulled him past a deep square leg to the boundary. And, when Shakib bowled a delivery outside off stump, India’s batting God drove him with elegance past cover. And then, came the moment, off the 138th delivery that he faced. Tendulkar flicked Shakib towards the leg side, and jogged for his 100th run, and got to his 100th international hundred.

The crowd rose to its feet. They had witnessed history and had witnessed a feat that will forever remain eternal. We all know the result of the match. The Bangladesh side, led by a sedate 70 from Tamim Iqbal and a blazing 25-ball 46 from Mushfiqur Rahim stunned the Indian side and beat them with 5 wickets to spare. And, Tendulkar ended up on the losing side.

Delving into some numbers to draw conclusions

Now, the question is, did Tendulkar’s ‘slow’ hundred cost India a win against Bangladesh? To understand a little more about it, let us delve into some numbers. Let us split Tendulkar’s century into 4 parts, and analyze the time that he took in the table below.

Throughout his innings, Tendulkar was cautious. While he took 33 deliveries to score his first 25 runs, he took 30 deliveries to move from 26 to 51. To move from 52 to 75, he took 31 deliveries and scored his runs at a strike rate of 77.41. But then, it was the final 25 runs that almost took an eternity. Even after he was well set, he scored his final 25 runs at a strike rate of just 56.81. In fact, Tendulkar even played out a maiden in the 34th over of the innings. Also, between his 91st run to his 100th run, Tendulkar played out as many as 7 dot balls. He was over-cautious, and it hurt the Indian side.

Let us do another thing. Let us look at India’s score after every 10 overs, and Tendulkar’s contribution to it to see if we can draw any conclusions.

Note: After the 40th over, we have split overs 41 to 47 into two parts because we need to clearly know how many deliveries Tendulkar took to get to his hundred after the 40th over. Also, we have taken only till the 47th over because Tendulkar was dismissed off the 5th ball of the 47th over.

So, there we have it. Tendulkar started cautiously but slowed down drastically between the 31st to the 44th over. While he scored his runs between the 1st and 10th over at a strike rate of 74.29, his scoring rate increased between the 11th and 20th over. Between the 21st to 30th over, Tendulkar scored at a strike rate of 82.76. But then, between the 31st to 40th over, at a time when he was nearing the milestone, he scored his runs at an extremely slow pace and was striking at a low 58.62.

And, after the 40th over till the 4th ball of the 44th over, Tendulkar took 11 balls to score just 5 runs and got to his 100th international hundred. And, when he tried to get a move on after his century, he could score just 14 runs and perished. In fact, it would not be wrong to state that it was Tendulkar’s slow approach that cost the Indian side the match.

We are not done yet. Let us do some number crunching for the last time in the table below. And this time, let us compare Tendulkar’s scoring rate with that of the other Indian batsmen to draw further conclusions.

Note: There were also 18 extras that were conceded by Bangladesh

Let us decode the above table. While Tendulkar faced nearly half the number of deliveries faced by the Indian side (147 out of 300), he scored his runs at a low strike rate of 77.55. On the other hand, all the other Indian batsmen put together scored 157 runs off 153 deliveries, at a strike rate of 102.61. And, there was a whopping difference of 25.06 between the strike rate of Tendulkar and the strike rate of the other batsmen.

The Final Word

We all worship Tendulkar even today and rightfully so. He has given us more reasons to smile than any other sportsman that this country has produced. He has, on innumerable occasions taken the Indian side past the finish line, and has torn apart several bowling attacks with mastery.

But then, his historic 100th ton was one where the individual (Tendulkar here obviously) put his cause over that of his team’s. After all, even the ‘God of cricket’ has a human side to him, isn’t it?