7 Sachin Tendulkar records that are unlikely to be ever broken

When Sir Don Bradman ended his career with 29 centuries to his name, many cricket experts at the time believed that the record will stand the test of time and never be broken. But 36 years later, a little man named Sunil Gavaskar eclipsed the great Australian’s record. Since then, five batsmen have gone to better the former Indian opening batsman’s landmark.On top of that list is a certain Sachin Tendulkar who is the only cricketer to have over 50 Test centuries to his name. Tendulkar is definitely the player with the most number of records associated with oneself in the game of cricket. Here we look at some of his records that we expect to stand the test of time:

#7 Most ODI runs in a calender year

Sharjah. 1998. Australia. Desert Storm.

Every Sachin Tendulkar who witnessed those two magical innings over two days in April 1998 will tell you that those are the most cherished cricketing memories of his/her life. Tendulkar scored a lot of runs until the twilight of his career, but it was 1998 that he was he was at his peak and stunned the world by his aggressive style of batting. A lot was expected from fans when the world’s best batsman came up against the world’s best bowler in Shane Warne, but it turned out to be a very uneven contest as Tendulkar took to Warne like a cat would to a rat.

Tendulkar summed up 1894 ODI runs in the year, a record that stands 16 years on. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid came close to breaking the record the following year, but no one since the year 2000 has scored over 1500 ODI runs in a calender year which makes Sachin’s record look safe.

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#6 Most Test runs at number 4

Although Sachin Tendulkar batted at a few different positions at the start of his Test career, he stuck on to the number four spot once he became the mainstay of the Indian batting line-up. India’s most famous number four batsman scored a whooping 13492 runs at the position. Recently retired Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene is second, having scored 9509 runs coming in after the loss of two wickets. Ross Taylor is the top active batsman on the list with 3826 runs at number four to his name, which is a clear indication that this record of Sachin is going to be almost impossible to break.

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#5 Most runs at the World Cup

Sachin Tendulkar is the only batsman in the history of the Cricket World Cup to have scored over 2000 runs at the mega event. Following the triumphant 2011 campaign, Tendulkar ended with 2278 runs having played in 6 World Cups in total. The recently concluded World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was the first World Cup in 28 years that did not feature the master batsman. Tendulkar also holds the record for being the top scorer at a single World Cup, as he tallied up 673 runs in the 2003 tournament.

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#4 15000+ runs and 150+ wickets in ODIs

Considering he is the only player to have scored over 15000 runs, this is hardly a surprise. Tendulkar, despite making his name mainly as a batsman, was also a handy bowler when it came to ODI cricket especially at the start of his career. 154 wickets at just over 44 a pop is definitely a good effort from someone who through out his career was considered to be just a ‘part-time’ bowler. The best part about Tendulkar’s bowling was his ability to bowl off-spin, leg-spin and medium pace depending on what the situation demanded.

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#3 Most Man of the Match awards in ODIs

Sachin Tendulkar was awarded the Man of the match gag 62 times in one-day international cricket during his illustrious career. Sanath Jayasuriya ended his career with 48 such awards and is second. But after that, there is a huge gap with Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting and Shahid Afridi coming in at 3rd place with 32 Man of the Match awards each, which is almost half of Sachin’s number.

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#2 Most international runs

With 34357 runs to his name, Tendulkar is nearly 7000 runs ahead of the second name on the list for most international runs scored across all formats of the game. That is a difference of just over 20%. Tendulkar is also the highest run scorer individually in both ODIs and Test cricket. There are murmurs that Virat Kohli and Alastair Cook could challenge those respective records, but there’s a long way for both to go before they get anywhere near the Mumbaikar’s records.

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#1 100 international centuries

After being stuck on 99 centuries for just over a year, Sachin Tendulkar finally managed to bring up his 100th ton against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup in 2012. Thus, the Indian maestro became the first ever batsmen to score 100 international centuries, with 51 of them coming in Test cricket and 49 in ODIs. Second on the list is Ricky Ponting and he is way behind with 71 tons to his name. One can confidently say that this record will never be matched.

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