Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar will never forget this trip to Bangalore. The day he arrived at the Garden city from Mohali, he won the ICC player of the year award.He followed it up by completing his 14,000 Test runs on Sunday and the next day he scored his 49th Test hundred and is just nine runs short of his sixth double century.
On Monday, the Australians were left wondering as how to get Tendulkar out with the Little Master playing a chanceless innings of 191 runs to put India on top in the second Test match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Tendulkar along with Murali Vijay, who scored his maiden Test century, took India into a comfortable position as the hosts ended Day Three on 435 for five in reply to Australia’s 478 runs. India now trail by 43 runs and the bad news for the visitors is that Tendulkar is still at the centre along with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is batting on 11.
Tendulkar and Vijay added 308 runs for the third wicket off which 218 were scored on Monday to really make it a day that the Australians would like to forget at the earliest. Though Vijay was unlucky to be out on 139, his innings was overshadowed by Tendulkar’s knock.
Right from the morning it looked like it was going to be Tendulkar’s day. He started the day with a boundary of the very first ball and two balls later brought up his fifty with a paddle sweep.
From then on there was no stopping Tendulkar. While his first 50 took 91 balls, Sachin raced to his next 50 in just 66 balls to bring up his 49th century in style hitting Nathan Hauritz for two sixes over wide long-on.
Tendulkar and Vijay also ensured that the tradition set in the first two days was followed as they batted through the morning session that once again turned out to be wicketless for the third successive day.
Post lunch, Vijay stepped on the accelerator, while Tendulkar played the sheet anchor’s role.
The Tamil Nadu batsman, who scored his third test fifty in the morning session, made full use of the opportunity as he smashed the bowlers all across the ground to get past his previous highest score of 87 runs.
Once in the nervous nineties, Vijay took 43 balls to get to his maiden century and he celebrated it in style by jumping in the air. In fact, it took him 11 balls to move from 99 to 100.
The two made the day more agonising for the visitors as Australia failed to get a breakthrough even in the second session.
The last session started with yet another milestone for Tendulkar, who reached 150 runs for the 20th time in his career. This added another feather to his already overcrowded cap as he broke Brian Lara’s record of going past the 150-run mark 19 times.
He was replaced by debutant Cheteshwar Pujara, who started on a good note hitting a beautiful cover drive off the second ball he faced in Test cricket. But he was unlucky to get out the very next ball after the Johnson delivery kept low and shot across
towards a surprised Pujara, who crouched and tried
to get some bat in the way.
But he couldn’t and his debut lasted for just threedeliveries.
Suresh Raina, who has been in good form, played some glorious shots. At one stage it looked as if Raina along with Tendulkar would see offthe day’s play after the Australian’s were forced to deploy spinner from both ends due to fading light.
But Raina played a loose shot off Michael Clarke only to hit it straight to mid-on where Ben Hilfenhaus made no mistake and the left hander departed for 32 (43b 5x4).
While wickets kept tumbling at the other end, Tendulkar didn’t lose his concentration and carried on minting runs against what looked like a helpless Aussie attack until the umpires decided to call it a day due to bad light with four more overs left.
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