The 5 best bowling performances by Sachin Tendulkar

The very sight of Sachin Tendulkar entices the cricketing fans with nostalgia. His batting, bowling and fielding were all lethal in equal measures. There had been occasions when he failed with the bat but made roaring comebacks with some brilliant bowling displays. He had a golden arm that was adept at bowling all kinds of deliveries.

Be it off spin, leg spin, googly or the slider – you name it and the Master will deceive you with his uncanny accuracy and expertise to leave you in awe of his supernatural abilities. On the eve of his 45th birthday, we wish him a very satisfying, healthy and successful year ahead while taking a look at his five best ODI bowling performances.

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#1 5/32 Against Australia in Kochi (1998)

India hosted Australia and Zimbabwe for the Pepsi Triangular Series in 1998. The first match of the series between India and Australia is remembered for the bowling heroics of Sachin Tendulkar. India won the toss and chose to bat first with Navjot Singh Sidhu and Tendulkar opening the Indian batting. Tendulkar couldn’t trouble the scorers much as he was caught by Ricky Ponting for a paltry score of eight off the bowling of Michael Kasprowicz.

But, Ajay Jadeja put on a brilliant 104-run partnership with the skipper, Mohammad Azharuddin to propel India to a total of 309 runs. Jadeja remained unbeaten on 105 runs. Mark Waugh and Adam Gilchrist started a counter-attacking chase as they put on 102 runs for the opening wicket. Gilchrist was especially dangerous as he thrashed the Indian bowlers all around the park. Javagal Srinath brought India back into the game with the wicket of Waugh and soon Australia found themselves in a spot of bother as they lost Ponting at the score of 143.

The return of Ponting marked the onset of a special bowling effort by the Little Master. Tendulkar deceived Steve Waugh to have him caught and bowled for a score of 26 while Darren Lehman followed soon, after being given LBW off Tendulkar's bowling. Michael Bevan (65) threatened to take the match away but the Mumbaikar pulled one out from his bag of tricks to have him stumped by Nayan Mongia with the score reading 239. Tendulkar capped off his brilliant bowling display by picking up two more wickets, that of Tom Moody and Damien Martyn and helped his team to a 41-run victory.

#2 5/50 Against Pakistan in Kochi (2005)

Tendulkar's love affair with Kochi continued against Pakistan in 2005 as he ran through the Pakistani middle order to skittle them out for 194 in the chase of 282. India posted a daunting 281 with centurion efforts from Virender Sehwag (108) and Rahul Dravid (104) after losing Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly early in their innings. Arshad Khan took a four-for and restricted the Indian middle-order from pushing the total towards 300. Laxmipathy Balaji drew the first blood for India as he prized out Kamran Akmal at the score of 45.

Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan too chipped in with wickets to reduce Pakistan to 64 for 4. Tendulkar assumed the mantle of further destruction as he broke the 48-run stand between Inzamam ul Haq and Mohammad Hafeez by bowling the former for 37. The rest of middle-order collapsed like a house of cards as the batsmen failed to read the bowling variations of Tendulkar. Zaheer applied the finishing touches to the Pakistan innings as he castled Naved ul Hasan to hand Pakistan an 87-run defeat. Tendulkar returned with figures of 10-01-50-5.

#3 4/34 Against West Indies in Sharjah (1991)

The fifth match of the Wills Trophy of 1991 saw the capitulation of West Indian batting order to the guiles and tricks of Tendulkar, the bowler. India won the toss and asked West Indies to bat first. Kapil Dev helped India upfront by snapping Phillip Simmons for 14. From there on it was all the Tendulkar show. He caught Clayton Lambert in front of the wicket to have him LBW and followed it up with the wicket of Captain Richie Richardson who was caught by Mohammad Azharuddin for a score of 16.

Gus Logie and wicket-keeper Jeff Dujon were caught behind to complete the four-wicket haul. West Indies collapsed to 145 with Tendulkar picking four scalps while Dev and Manoj Prabhakar picked up two wickets each.

Sidhu (44) and Sanjay Manjrekar (43) batted with great resolve and successfully countered all the efforts of the West Indian pacers. After the departure of the duo, Tendulkar was in action again as he combined with Azharuddin to take India over the finishing line.

#4 Last over of the Hero Cup Semi-Final (1993)

The day was 24th November 1993, and the occasion was the high-octane semi-final of the Hero Cup against South Africa. India managed an under-par looking total of 195 and that too largely because of the efforts of Azharuddin who starred with the bat to score 90 runs. Eight of the Indian batting stalwarts registered a single digit score. An inspired bowling performance by the Indian bowlers reduced South Africa to 145 for 7 and India looked clear favorites to win the game, but a spirited resistance from Brian McMillan and Dave Richardson threatened to take the game away as they added 44 valuable runs for the eighth wicket.

With the score reading 190 for eight, Azhar shocked the Eden Gardens when he asked Tendulkar to bowl the last over. Tendulkar had only 5 runs to defend and the odds were stacked heavily against him. McMillan scored a single on the first ball but Fannie de Villiers, in his attempt to bring McMillan back on strike, was run-out as he tried to go for a second run. Both the batsmen were left facing each other at the bowling end as an aftermath of that terrible mix-up. Allan Donald walked into bat with the score at 191 for 9.

Two dot balls followed as Donald failed to get his willow on the ball. The fourth ball was very close to being called a wide, but Umpire Steve Bucknor ruled in Tendulkar’s favor, and Donald had to be content without scoring. A single accrued on the fifth ball as the hoick from Donald only reached as far as Kumble on long-on. South Africa needed four runs to win off the last ball and Tendulkar pushed wicket-keeper Vijay Yadav on the edge of the 30-yard circle in anticipation of stopping an edge from the bat that might run to the boundary. The very same thing happened on the last ball as an inner edge from McMillan’s bat was intercepted by Yadav and India completed one of the sensational wins of their ODI history as South Africa were left two runs short of the target.

#5 4/38 Against Australia in Dhaka (1998)

The quarter-final of the Wills International Cup in Dhaka in 1998 saw the magical all-round performance of the greatest batsman India ever produced. Tendulkar struck a blistering century (141 runs off 128 balls) and took his team’s total to a mammoth 307/8. He received some great support from Ajay Jadeja who scored a quickfire 71 from 65 balls. With the kind of firepower in the Australian ranks, it was not going to be easy to defend such a total. Again, it was Javagal Srinath who provided the first wicket in the form of Adam Gilchrist (25) and then Sunil Joshi dealt a double blow to Aussies by removing Mark Waugh (74) and Ricky Ponting (41).

Tendulkar came on to bowl and wove his magic around the middle and lower middle order and the batsmen, again, failed to get better of his variations. He took the wickets of Steve Waugh, Michael Bevan, Damien Martyn and Bradley Young to squash all the hopes of an Australian escape. India won the game comfortably in the end by a margin of 44 runs and Tendulkar received the Man of the Match award for his all-round performance.