Sachin Tendulkar didn’t take long to make an impression at the international level after making his India debut as a 16-year-old. The then-teenage sensation took on the dangerous Pakistan pace attack on their own backyard with a lot of guts and skill. Tendulkar hit 2 fifties on his maiden tour and made sure he dominated newspaper headlines.
Sachin Tendulkar’s maiden Test hundred came only his 15th international match against a top English attack at Old Trafford but he had to wait close to 5 years to get his maiden hundred in ODI cricket.
No player has gotten even close to Sachin Tendulkar’s ODI tally of 18,426 runs but his limited-overs career did not get off to a great start. Tendulkar went 78 matches and nearly 5 years without an ODI hundred. He had scored 17 fifties during the said period but a 3-figure score was eluding him.
#OnThisDay in 1994, Sachin Tendulkar hit 110 against Australia in Colombo – the first of his 49 ODI centuries 🔥
Which is your favourite Tendulkar ton in the format? pic.twitter.com/nu4ONjdGsf
— ICC (@ICC) September 9, 2020
The breakthrough moment came during the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Against one of his favorite oppositions, Australia, Tendulkar scored his maiden hundred — 110 from 130 balls which included 8 boundaries and 2 sixes.
Opening the batting with Manoj Prabhakar, Tendulkar came up with a free-flowing hundred. He stitched handy stands with the likes of Navjot Singh Sidhu and Mohammad Azharuddin before Vinod Kambli smashed a quickfire 43 as India posted 246/8 on the board.
In response, Mark Waugh hit a solid 61 but it was not enough as Australia fell short of the target by 31 runs. Tendulkar’s ODI career can be split into two parts — the ones on either side of his maiden ODI hundred. Before Tendulkar got to the 3-figure mark, he had scored 2126 runs at an average of 32.70.
However, after his maiden hundred, Tendulkar raised his game to another level, scoring at 47.10. Tendulkar scored 16,300 runs and 48 more hundreds and 62 more fifties after the match-winning ton in Colombo.
