It was the 2nd ODI between India and south africa and by the time i reached home in the afternoon Tendulkar was in the nervous nineties. I was praying for his ton and soon he raised his bat to the dressing room acknowledging the cheers of lakhs of people around him in the stadium. I can assure that whenever Sachin hits a ton we find a smile on each and every Indian's face. We normally donot have that additional grin on our faces when some other cricketing legend scores a ton[Well thats my opinion].But in a while his batting style after scoring a hundred had changed considerably. He started to go after the bowling and scored boundaries at regular intervals.When the second batting powerplay was taken Sachin had just crossed the 150 mark. Some how i felt that he would make it to the 200 mark. He kept going and became the highest scorer in ODI's when he surpassed Anwar's record of 194. I was more nervous just like millions of Indian's who were watching him play. Basically im a Dhoni maniac and when Dhoni didnt give sachin strike for a while when the batting maestro was on 199, i cursed Dhoni like never before. It was over no 50 in the match when this magical moment which deserved to be etched in gold in the history of cricket took place. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar completes his double century and becomes the first man to do it in the history of limited over cricket.
After the match is over i started to think..."What a man,What a knock,What elegance,What style..."...It is rightly said that in India cricket is a religion and Sachin is GOD. At 37 he scored each and every run in his innings by himself without a runner. This enlightens me that it is never too late to make any accomplishment. If u have the passion,zeal and if you truly work for your dreams they do turn into reality. Sachin has proved the entire world that he is the best player and yet his words in the post match press conference were really very modest.He said that he was happy because this achievement belongs to an Indian cricketer.When a scribe made a statement saying "Records are meant to be broken" and sought his reaction,the batting maestro said that he would be happy if this record was broken by an Indian.The entire nation adores him not only for his pyrotechinics but for his character also.He truly deserves a Bharata Ratna for all his achievements in cricketing field. I have no idea about the amount of sadness that prevails in our cricket crazy country when Tendulkar calls off. For now, iam really happy to see him go out and bat. Lets hope that batting legend would entertain us for many more years and break many more records.....We Love you SACHIN....
