Twenty one test innings without a century. That’s the latest stats of the master Sachin Tendulkar, which has raised question over his ability to play a big innings in crucial conditions.
His last century came in the third test when India toured South Africa in early 2011.Since then his form has gone through a roller -coaster ride and he has not been able to convert the starts into big ones.
From the English tour to the Down Under, only 778 runs have come through his blade with an average of 37.04. In this period he has just managed to score six half centuries with the highest of 94 at the Wankhade Stadium against the Windies . This poor run has again poured water to the controversial plants like Overseas, Batting Second and Fourth Innings Performance.
No doubt Tendulkar has registered some great knocks in the fourth innings of the away tours but when it comes to comparison with other greats of the game then his compatriot Rahul Dravid is surprisingly ahead of him. Dravid averages 45.90 with his 1010 runs from 31 innings , while Tendulkar ‘s average is only 28.92 from 31 innings, which clearly shows that most of his test runs have come in the first three innings.
Apart from his Overseas fourth innings performance, his Overall fourth innings performance is also not that impressive. He averages 38.12 with total of 1563 runs in 56 innings, in comparison, Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has surpassed him with a huge margin. Ponting holds an average of 56.40 with 39 innings as compared to Tendulkar’s 28.92. Ponting has also scored four centuries, out of these three centuries have come on the bowling friendly wickets, whereas Tendulkar has scored only 3 centuries,in which two have been scored on the home soil at Chennai, which has always been a Batsman friendly wicket.
Along with his two special knocks on the slower pitches of M.A Chidambaram, his most of the big test innings too have been scored on the flat tracks especially in the Indian Sub-continent. Let it be his career best of 248* at Dhaka or 217 and 214 runs against the Kiwis and Australians respectively at the venues like Ahmadabad and Nagpur which were bowlers nightmare.
It will be totally wrong to say that Sachin has never performed as per his talent in the fourth innings or at the overseas. His century at the WACA cricket ground in 1992 or in South Africa at Cape Town in 1997 and other innings will always be remembered but one cannot ignore his overall fourth innings overseas stats. At the end Fact is Fact, which raises question that weather Sachin is a match winner in test or Just a run machine??
