Sachin Tendulkar scored yet another century when he hit an unbeaten 105 on the second day of the First Test match between Indian and Bangladesh played at Chittagong.  It was yet another milestone for Sachin Tendulkar as it was his 25th century overseas.  Critics would be quick to pounce saying that the century came against Bangladesh which is one of the weakest teams in the world but the fact is that Sachin is not the only player to have accumulated centuries from Bangladesh as there are other greats too like Ricky Ponting and company whose tally of centuries include centuries scored against Bangladesh.  Another important fact is that Bangladesh teams right from their initiation into Test Cricket boasted of a decent bowling line up and the current Bangladesh team has a far more potent attack than any team in the world especially since many great bowlers other countrioes like Shane Warne, Mc Grath and to some extent Anil Kumble retiring from top Test teams like Australia and India. In their skipper Shakib Al Hassan Bangladesh have one of the best bowlers in the world who held the top ranking in ICC cricket rankings in 2009.

Importance of Sachins 25th Century:- With Sachin Tendulkar  reeling centuries at regular intervals getting 25th century overseas is at best considered yet another number for statisticians and cricket fans.  While there are other greats like Ricky Ponting and Jacque Kallis reeling centuries, there are many others in the world who struggle to get to even 20 centuries in their entire Test Career.  The likes of Michael Artherton, Marvan Attapatu and a host of others could never accumulate even 20 centuries in a career and this is where centuries 25 centuries abroad gain importance.  Sachin Tendulkar has managed to score more centuries abroad than a normal player could ever imagine of getting that many hundreds in a entire playing career.

Sachin's unbeaten 105 against Bangladesh should be on par with one of his best efforts.  When Sachin came to the crease the score was 79 and when the last man got out the score was 243 and in between 164 runs have been scored of which he scored 105 of those runs.  If you exclude extras while Sachin scored 105 his partners like Dravid, Laxman and tail enders scored a mere 63 but Sachin rallied brilliantly with the tail enders stitching partnerships of 32 with Amit Mishra, 27 with Zaheer Khan, 21 with Ishant Sharma  and 13 with Sreesanth to get to his century and in the process adding respectability to the Indian total.  Thanks to Sachin's efforts and given the fact that Bangladeshi batsmen are known for self destruction, India find themselves in a better option to force a win. Another thing which makes Sachins effort more memorable is the fact that Shakib and Shahadat who wrecked the Indian batting line up bowled in tandem  for most part of the innings and the fact that they bowled 48 of the 70 overs in the innings made Sachins task even more difficult as it is never easy for a batsmen to face threatening bowlers from both ends.

 


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