Sachin Tendulkar - The Man, The Legend.

It had to happen at some point. This seems a season for new records. Coming close in the heels of Lara's achievement of overtaking Allan Border and becoming the leading run scorer in test match cricket, India's own cricketing genius, Sachin tendulkar, went past fellow countryman Sunny Gavaskar's long standing test cricket record (almost 20 years) when he reached the magical three figure mark for the 35th time in his career on day one of the 2nd test match at the Ferozeshah kotla.

For almost a decade now, most observers predicted that Tendulkar would break most, if not all, exisiting cricketing records and he has delivered. A cursory glance at his perfomances, in both formats of the game, speaks volumes of his abilities. Highest run scorer in One-day internationals? Most prolific century-maker in One day internationals!? Most number of ODI appearances!? Number 3 or Number 4 in highest Test averages amongst current players? Surely he is one of the best to have ever played the game.

And I'm quite certain that this back to back record breaking season would re-open the contentious debate ; Who is better batsmen - Lara or Tendulkar? Also I know it is rather impolite to be skeptical at such a joyous ocassion yet many within cricketing circles and individuals amongst the general public, including yours truly, feel the need to raise a pertinent question - whether we've seen the best of Tendulkar? It's an question which would sharply divide the cricketing fraternity and perhaps in some odd way this has affected Tendulkar's performances. But more on these debatable issues later.

Meanwhile here are some fascinating statistics for all those number-crunchers to help analyze Sachin's performance over the years courtesy Cricinfo

---> Look at the Numbers


-Nav