This was not an official ODI. It was meant to be one, but inclement weather had turned the ODI between India and Pakistan at Peshawar into an unofficial encounter with shortened overs. Sachin Tendulkar wasn’t meant to play in the game, but given the non-serious, ‘friendly’ game, he was allowed to feature in. Having said that, no game could ever be a non-serious one between the two rivals – India and Pakistan!
The Pakistanis piled up enough to test the Indian batting, and half way through the innings, it looked like the Indians had given up chasing the total. In walked Sachin Tendulkar and tore into the bowling of Mushtaq Ahmed, who was also a young spin bowler for Pakistan.
Abdul Qadir, one of Pakistan’s best bowlers at that time, enticed the young, 16-year old boy from Mumbai by saying something that roughly translates into, “Hey kiddo, why are you hitting another kid. Try hitting me!”
Tendulkar was obedient enough to oblige. He smashed three sixes off the bowling of Qadir and took more than 20 off the over that he bowled, to get to his 50. In the end, he remained unbeaten on 53 off only 18 balls – a very quick effort even going by today’s T20 standards – but India lost the game by three runs, as Tendulkar wasn’t able to hit the last ball from Wasim Akram for a boundary.
At the other end, Krish Srikkanth, who was himself a hard hitter of the ball, was barely able to do much, but Tendulkar exhibited a totally different class altogether.
Tendulkar did make his ODI debut in another game later that week, but scored a duck, and then went onto be dismissed for another zero in his second official ODI against New Zealand. It was mayhem for the bowlers for twenty years after that!
Comments
Nice Info...actually in a similar exibition match against newzealand sachin scored 75 in just 25 balls...I can't seem to remember the dates...but it was in this current dacade.may be 5 or 6 years back
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