Sachin boldly goes where no man has gone before! Hail, King Sachin!!

When I was giving up playing the game of cricket in 1989, my focus was drawn toward a snap on the cover of Sportsweek (now closed), which had the faces of two newcomers to the Indian cricket team that was chosen to tour Pakistan. One was Salil Ankola and the other - Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar!

Today, in the league match vs. Bangladesh, Sachin Tendulkar reached his 100th international century!! Sachin has boldly gone on to where no man has ever gone before! Hail, King Sachin!! I could not locate the photograph that I spoke about earlier. Here's one from Ben Radford / © AllSport UK Ltd, from ESPNCricinfo.

Sachin Tendulkar, India. Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo.

Wow! What a feat!! Don't think that this stupendous world record of 100 international centuries will ever be broken!!!

The nearest international cricket player to Sachin Tendulkar on the list of players with the most international tons in a career is Ricky Ponting of Australia with 71 hundreds! South African Jacques Kallis, is further down at 59 tons!! Off the other batsmen with over 40 international hundreds in cricket, only two - Sri Lankans Mahela Jayawardene with 45 tons and Kumar Sangakkara with 41 tons, respectively, make the list.

I remember Sachin came close to his maiden test hundred vs. New Zealand at Napier in Feb. 1990, and the excitement surrounding that! I first saw Sachin Tendulkar play for West Zone at a Duleep Trophy game in New Delhi's Ferozshah Kotla ground in the early 1990s. Since then, I too have followed his career very closely. It has been a real pleasure following you all of these years, King Sachin!!