Top 5 game changing moments in cricket

3. Sachin Tendulkar’s back pain in Chennai Test against Pakistan:

Not only external factors like rain or umpiring decisions affect the course of a match but also, on certain occasions, internal factors like player’s physique and other elements can ditch you at the most inconvenient time possible.

In 1999, when India was playing Pakistan in a test match in Chennai, as always – the contest did not fail to catch up to the pre-match hype. Nothing separated the two teams as the batsmen from both the sides struggled to get their side past 300. India had a slight upper hand, gaining a slender first innings lead over their arch rivals. Pakistan did not do anything better in their second innings, leaving the renowned batting line up of India to chase a target of 271 runs with more than a day to spare.

Pakistan came back strongly though, by making life difficult for the Indian batsmen. Though the top order failed, Sachin Tendulkar gave everything he had by scoring a faultless century with patience written all over it.

Unfortunately, a decade long cricket career got the better of him as he began to suffer from enormous back pain. Despite the agony, he gave everything for his country. Nearing the target, Tendulkar wanted to finish off the game quickly as he could not handle the pain any more. So with six wickets down, he took a risk, going down the wicket to Saqlain Mushtaq attempting to hit a maximum. But then, he could not quite get anywhere near it and eventually holed out Wasim Akram at mid-off.

When Sachin departed after scoring 136, India needed just 17 runs for victory. But the next three wickets fell like nine pins, with the batsmen adding only three more runs on the board. The match, which was always under India’s grasp, eventually went in the opposition’s favour as a result of it.