Stats: Some lesser known facts about Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin scored his maiden ODI century exactly 21 years ago against Australia

Sachin Tendulkar registered his maiden ODI century exactly 21 years ago. The Indian batting maestro finished his career with 49 centuries in the 50-over format but had to wait a long time for his first 100-plus score. Sachin achieved that feat on September 9, 1994, playing in his 79th ODI against Australia during the Singer World Series match in Colombo against Australia, one of his favourite’s opponents.

Looking back, Sachin Tendulkar definitely is India’s most potent gift to cricket. His magic not just lie in the number of runs that he has accumulated or the rate at which he has scored them. It lies in the manner in which he made them, for he certainly seemed, much like his illustrious West Indian compatriot Brian Lara, to make batting look like art.

It’s the consistency of Tendulkar's record across the three formats that is astonishing. Tendulkar averaged 53.86 in Tests, 44.83 in ODIs and 32.90 in domestic Twenty20s. Tendulkar also holds the world record for the most number of ODI appearances with 463 (18 more than second-placed Sanath Jayasuriya) and has played in 307 first class, 551 List A and 96 Twenty20 matches. The consistency with which he has averaged more than 50 for the last 18 years of his career is awe-inspiring.

Tendulkar is one man who has the record number of 'firsts' and 'mosts' to his name. In 1992, Sachin became the youngest cricketer to reach the 1000-runs mark in Test cricket. He is also the one & only Indian cricketer to have scored a century on his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy debuts. He has played more than three Tests in a year 19 times, and in 17 of those years his yearly average has been more than 40, and 2 times over 55.

Aptly nicknamed the “run machine”, he scored 1000 Test runs in a calendar year six times – 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2008 and 2010.

Tendulkar faced 848 bowlers during his career and if each of them were to be lined up to bowl one over each at him it would take 9 full Test days plus a morning session. That's the vastness of his experience in a nutshell.

He also played against nine opponents over the course of his Test career ranging in standard from Australia's all-conquering squads under Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting (3,630 runs @ 55.00) to the minnows like Bangladesh (820 @ 136.66) and Zimbabwe (918 @ 76.50).

Interestingly, Tendulkar has performed better in away Tests (8705 @ 54.74) compared with those in India (7132 @ 52.82).

Unfortunately for Tendulkar though, his best period coincided with the one where India had a poor bowling attack, especially overseas, and a batting line-up that tended to crumble quite often on tours. In the 69 Tests between the beginning of 1993 and the end of 2001, India won 23, but only three of those came abroad. During this period, Tendulkar contributed almost 20% of all runs scored by India, and more than 21% when they played in Australia, South Africa, England, New Zealand or the West Indies.

It hence didn’t come as a surprise when the whole nation went berserk during his final appearance for team India. Media in its different forms, the government and most notably the public – all went ablaze when the great man took the ground for one last time at The Wankhede, his home ground.

Here are some more interesting facts about Sachin:

• Tendulkar was the first player to pick up 40 wickets and score more than 11000 runs in Tests.

• He remains the only player to play 200 Test matches.

• Tendulkar has been dismissed 681 times in his career and for just over 60% of those dismissals, he was out caught.

• The ICC gave Tendulkar his highest rating (898) in the year 2002 after a Test against Zimbabwe.

• There was a phase in Sachin’s career when he managed 21 centuries in just 59 Tests - an average of one every 2.81 matches. His average during this phase was well ahead of the second-placed Andy Flower, who led a string of batsmen who averaged in the md-50s.

• Sachin has the highest Test batting average against Australia since 1990.