Sachin Tendulkar bats after five and a half years, faces Ellyse Perry

Sachin Tendulkar, the former Indian cricketer, came out of retirement during the Bushfire Bash cricket appeal match at the Junction Oval in Melbourne. On Saturday, February 8, Ellyse Perry, the Australia women’s all-rounder, challenged him to face one over in the mid-innings break of the charity match. The Master Blaster accepted it with glee and eventually took the field.

Even as he agreed for the same, he told that he was going against the advice of his doctor due to his shoulder injury. To start with Perry dug the leather in short and Sachin was quick to rock back on to the back foot. The batsman was on his toes and glanced the ball past the short fine-leg fielder to begin with a boundary. In the second ball, Perry again sprayed the ball down the leg side.

Tendulkar shows his class and calibre

Even this time, Sachin glided the ball through fine leg, but couldn’t get proper timing. The fielder running in from square leg cut of the boundary and Sachin could only score a couple. Perry bowled it a little fuller third time around and Tendulkar went for the same stroke. This time around, the ball went straight to the fielder inside the circle and the batter was denied any run.

In the fourth delivery, Perry hit the back-of-a-length around the off and middle stump. Sachin moved back and tried to slice the ball away. But the short third man fielder moved a bit to the right and stopped the ball. To everyone’s surprise, Perry handed over the ball to Anabelle Sutherland, who recently made her debut for the Australia women’s team in the ongoing T20I tri-series.

She started with an over-pitched delivery outside the off-stump and Sachin drove the leather straight into the hands of the cover fielder. In the last ball, Sutherland floated one up and Sachin pulled off his trademark straight drive, presenting the full face of the bat and oozing class.

The cricketers then went up to Sachin and shook hands with the legendary batsman. The joy in the faces of the women’s cricketers were pretty palpable. As far as the charity game is concerned, Ricky Ponting XI won by a solitary run after putting 104 for five in their allotted 10 overs.

Here is the video of Sachin’s face-off with Perry and Sutherland: –