Sachin Tendulkar is the only batter in the history of Test Cricket to have hit more than 50 Test Hundreds. For almost 85% of the players hitting 50 Hundreds in their international career would be a huge achievement, just imagine hitting 50 Hundreds in just one format of the sport. This was an occasion that would not be repeated again. Sachin Tendulkar played Test Cricket for 24 years and he played 200 Test Matches. He hit his 50th Test Hundred against South Africa In a Test Match which was played on 16th December 2010 at SuperSport Park in Centurion. Here you can see List of all Sachin Tendulkar 100s in Tests
Let’s talk about the 50th Test Century that he hit against South Africa
Sachin Tendulkar did the impossible
This was a Test Match that was won by South Africa by an innings and 25 Runs. However this is not the talking point from this match. This match is remembered for only 1 thing and that is the 50th Test Hundred that was scored by Sachin Tendulkar. In the first innings of the match, India could only make 136 and Sachin Tendulkar was the highest scorer in this innings with 36 runs that he made. This was a very poor batting performance by India at Super Sport Park in Centurion. South Africa gained control of the match in this innings only but the way they batted took the Test Match from India.
They made a whopping 620 runs for the loss of just 4 wickets. They batted for 130 overs and they were batting at a great run rate of 4.76. Hashim Amla and AB De Villiers scored great centuries and Jacques Kallis made a brilliant 201 not out. They declared at 620 runs and India had a fall order because they needed 484 runs first to make a match out of this and that was extremely improbable. India were much better in the second batting innings as the openers Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag got India to the perfect start and they made both made fast half centuries for India by scoring 80 and 63 respectively. Lower in the order it was MS Dhoni who was the star with a gritty 90 not out and he hit 14 fours in his innings. However it was not enough as South Africa won the match by an innings and 25 Runs.
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The 50th Test Hundred by Sachin Tendulkar
Now let’s look at the historic 50th Test Hundred by Sachin Tendulkar. He was batting at number 5 for India in this match as Ishant Sharma was sent as the night watchman on one day. Sachin Tendulkar played for 241 balls in this innings. He had a strike rate of 46.06 and he hit 13 fours and 1 six in this innings meaning 58 Runs in boundaries. Sachin Tendulkar was batting carefully and he wanted to not get out because he knew that if he got out then there would be no match. In 2010, it had been 21 years since Sachin Tendulkar had played test cricket. And finally the moment came and Sachin Tendulkar reached his 50th Test Century and the cricketing world was looking in awe of the greatest of all time. He would get on to make one more hundred in the next match and that would be hundred number 51 in Test Cricket.
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