My top 101 memories of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - #6

December 2001, Ahmedabad – 2^nd Test match, India v/s England

Sachin 104 (197b, 12*4s, 1*6s)

In the winters of 2001, the English came to India to play a 3 match Test series under the leadership of Nasser Hussain. England had been terrible tourists to India for quite some time now. The main reason behind their abysmal record was their impotency against quality spin bowling. In the semi-finals of 1987 World Cup, Graham Gooch swept India out of the tournament. After that the over reliance on the sweep shot often led to the downfall of the English batsmen against Indian spinner. On the other hand, Indians were this invincible power at home. So this series was expected to be a one sided affair. In the first test at Mohali, India displayed their supremacy with a dominating performance and thrashed the English by 10 wickets. The English looked as clueless as they were expected to be and the test lasted less than 4 days.

After the humiliation in the first test, Nasser Hussain took some drastic decisions. He bought in Ashley Giles into the playing eleven. This decision drew a lot of criticism because the left arm spinner was short on match practice. On a dry pitch of Ahmedabad, under the scorching sun, England won the toss and opted to bat first. This time the English batsmen put on an impressive show and piled up 407 runs. Sachin bowled a few leg-breaks and accounted for Mark Ramprakash. By the time India came into bat on the second day, the pitch was scuffed up and the cracks on it were starting to open up. India made a decent start but the openers fell in quick succession to bring Sachin on to the crease. Sachin and Dravid played for the close of the day's play and India ended the 2^nd day at 71 for 2. On the third morning of the Test match, Sachin started positively. He swept Richard Dawson for a boundary through the fine-leg region. But soon Indians were served with an unpleasant surprise. The ball was reversing sharply due to the rough surface. Hussain put Mathew Hoggard, Andrew Flintoff and Craig White to do the honors and they obliged with some classic reverse swing. From the other end, Hussain deployed Ashley Giles to go over the wicket and bowl his left arm leg-breaks. The spinner maintained a negative line tactics by regularly pitching the ball outside the leg-stump. This dried the flow of runs and Dravid & Sourav Ganguly played rash strokes to lose their wickets. India was reduces to 93 for 4 and Sachin decided to take the attack to the opponents.

Sachin switched to a middle stump guard and started to shuffle outside the off-stump to negate the swing. The plan was to flick, glance or on-drive anything that was full. Soon after the fall of the 4^th wicket, White came in to ball to Sachin. After a few good length balls, he pitched one up to the bat in search of the coveted reverse swing. After pitching on off-stump, the ball swung outwards. Sachin covered the line with some nimble footwork and flicked it through mid-wicket for four. The counter attack commenced. Couple of overs later, Hoggard tried the same thing, this time the ball crashed into square leg fence for four more. Sachin completed his half-century with the stroke. Hussain sensed the change in tempo and bought back Giles to choke the run flow. To begin with, Sachin replied with some crafty paddle sweeps to fine-leg for singles and doubles. Once he got used to that line, Giles was smashed harder and this time it crossed the ropes, leaving the fine-leg fielder to fetch the ball back. In the very next over, Hoggard pitched one outside off and Sachin drove him through cover for sublime four. Couple of balls later, another full delivery on the stumps by Hoggard evoked similar response. It was driven but this time through mid-on for a sparkling four. The class of Sachin was on exhibition that afternoon. England had packed the off-side field but the ‘Little Master’ ridiculed the opposition by whipping balls from outside off through the leg side at will. With Hoggard being treated with disdain, Dawson was brought back to the attack. But he was not spared either. A tossed up ball by him was nailed over the long-on fence for a big six.

Sachin capped of this disciplined and classy effort with a century; he reached to the three figure mark with a sweetly timed leg glance off Hoggard to square leg for four. This was Sachin’s 27^th Test century and it left him at number 3 in the list of highest century makers behind Sir Donald Bradman and Sunil Gavaskar. In the very next over India crossed 207 and avoided the follow-on; a task which looked improbable when India lost 4 wickets within 100 runs. This faultless knock came to an end when Sachin miss-timed an on-drive to Nasser Hussain at mid-on.

This innings helped India to draw the match and maintain a lead of 1-0 in the series. This was one of the many epics that Sachin penned down single handedly to rescue the team from a crisis.