Sachin Tendulkar (Source: Twitter)
On this day, seventeen years ago, Indian batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar hit his 35th Test century in a fixture against Sri Lanka in Delhi. In this process, he went past Sunil Gavaskar’s tally of 34 centuries in red-ball cricket.
Batting first, India lost the wicket of Gautam Gambhir (2) early. Nevertheless, the contributions from Rahul Dravid (24) and VVS Laxman (69) helped the hosts to get back on track.
Thereafter, Tendulkar was sublime with his confidence and shot selections perfectly to score 109 off 196 balls. Sourav Ganguly contributed 40 as India managed to post 290 on the board. Muttiah Muralitharan was the pick of the bowlers for visitors with seven wickets.
In reply, Marvan Atapattu (88) and Mahela Jayawardene (60) were the contributors as Sri Lanka bundled out for 230. Anil Kumble shone brightly to effect six dismissals.
In the second innings, Irfan Pathan made good use of the promotion to the opening slot, as he hit 93 off 143. Then, skippers Rahul Dravid (53) and Sourav Ganguly (39) were impressive to take the game away from Sri Lanka.
The duo of Yuvraj Singh (77*) and MS Dhoni (51*) added an unbeaten stand of 104 runs, which helped India to set a target of 436 runs.
Kumble and Harbhajan Singh were impressive to take wickets in tandem to restrict Sri Lanka to a total of 247 and win by 188 runs. Atapattu and Jayawardene garnered 67 runs each for the Lions.
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