Sachin Tendulkar

The batting giant scaled one more grand summit in compiling his 28th One-day century. If Sunil Gavaskar was the first batsman to cross the 10,000-mark in ...

They were unable to read Harbhajan Singh and Agarkar too made the most of the situation by bowling a tidy line. The sweep was a productive shot to counter the line adopted by Andrew Symonds and Michael Bevan while he was too willing to grab the chance to hit Glenn McGrath and Damien Fleming through the line. A few uncharacteristic edges did irritate the Indian master but he recovered his composure to play an outstanding knock in keeping with his stature. As Steve Waugh succumbed to a frustrated heave and began his walk, he stopped and turned in his track, obviously disturbed by the taunt which flew from Ganguly, the bowler. But this day he employed a few interesting shots to baffle the bowlers and leave a mentally-strong man like Steve Waugh helpless. It was thus no wonder when one witnessed the ugly sight of one captain indulging in a verbal assault against his counterpart and leaving a sour taste to the well-crafted victory. The Indian innings could not maintain the tempo set by Tendulkar and Laxman and the latter half wasted the advantage earned by these two. But Laxman ran himself out for the second time in succession, leaving the stage to Tendulkar. But nothing worked in their favour and the Aussies were reduced to being passive spectators as Tendulkar inspired the team to put in an all-round show. He was fercely determined and nothing was going to affect his concentration once he had made up his mind to make a mark on this match. “A hundred is a hundred but this was one of the better ones. The man they had come to cheer did not disappoint.