10. What? Another hundred? Aren’t you satisfied with ninety nine? Hundreds just get boring after a while…
Maybe to you Sachin, but not to the nation. Did you know that Jack Hobbs has 199 centuries to his name – Okay, Okay! They are just first class hundreds, but still?
9. Nervous nineties!
Hmm…I can see how that can be an issue. You have after all been out in the nineties 26 times in your career (not to mention the one occasion when you were 96 not out and Malinga bowled a wide to concede the game to India – Damn you, Malinga!) . But, you also crossed the nervous nineties 99 times – surely you can do it one more time.
8. I want to feel the way mortals do – and go through a lean patch of no centuries…
You’ve already been through a lean patch once, remember? We want you as a God, not a mortal. Common and get on with that hundred!
7. I want to get it against Pakistan
Oh, dear! I know you made your debut against them, but it might be a while before we have another match against them, and the nation can’t wait that long!
6. Waiting for Ricky Ponting to catch up
Ok. He was close to your record at one stage (at least on test hundreds); but you’ve just left him too far behind. Did you know that your closest rival has only 69 international hundreds? And have you seen his form lately?
No way is anyone going to catch up with you. Just go ahead and get the hundred, dammit!
5. India has already seen a #1 Test ranking, ODI World cup win, World T20 win – the only thing remaining is this record. Don’t they need something to look forward to?
Puh-lease, let us worry about that. Just go ahead and get your damn hundred so that we as a nation can focus on something else.
4. I want to score it in a T20 international
Haven’t you retired from International T20s already? We don’t want to see you in that format ever again. (Ok, maybe just in IPL) – so, don’t even think about it…
3. Every time I score a hundred, India loses!
Not sure who came up with that. India have lost 24 of the 99 matches you’ve scored a hundred – so that makes for 75 matches that we’ve either won or saved. I’ll go with the .25 probability of India losing the game when you score a hundred.
2. I want to have the unique double of 200 international wickets and 100 international hundreds in tests and ODI’s combined. And do it in the same match!
Oh, yes – you’ve got a combined total of 199 wickets in ODIs and tests together. Let me talk to Dhoni and arrange for you to bowl in the next game you get a hundred.
But wait a minute, haven’t you got a wicket in a T20 international as well? That should make 200 in total. You’ve got no excuses any more!
1. I want to get to the century with a 4 or 6. Six hundred may be a bit ambitious, so waiting for the right opportunity to score 400!
Ok. That I can wait for. Is that going to be at the next game in Mumbai – in your home ground?
-Mahesh-
Excellent Mahesh. There were some comments on Twitter that Hobbs only (hah! only) made 197 hundreds. You may have counted the 2 centuries he made on a tour to Ceylon? Not sure they were official.
@Mohan – If it is on Cricinfo, it is official enough for me 🙂
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/14225.html
(Apparently, the two centuries he made in Ceylon were deemed first-class by the Association of Cricket statisticians)
Very intersting points that you have put across. We have many reasons why we wait for Sachin’s hundredth century even though Sachin seems to think it is just another number. I’ve tried to explore those reasons in my public speaking blog; hope you might like to read it. http://blog.bpps.in/2011/11/22/why-wait-for-sachin-tendulkars-hundredth-century/