Mr Centurion does it

Time stopped at 4.05pm local time at Centurion on Sunday. National loyalties were transcended and parochial self interests disappeared. The world was united. Thanks to Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

The SuperSport Park stood up in unison to hail a super human feat by a human (though we may like to call him God). The differences were blurred when Tendulkar’s 50th century came off a push to cover.

It was a moment of wonder, spectacle and audacity. It was in the fitness of things that the feat came off the bowling of Dale Steyn, the world’s No 1 bowler.

“I’ve never imagined that someone can go this level and play for more than 20 years. It’s an incredible feat,” Graeme Pollock, one of the greats of the game, told DNA.

“He is certainly forging new grounds in terms of greatness,” Matthew Hayden, himself a cricketing legend, told DNA. “There wouldn’t be one side in the world that wouldn’t want Sachin as their first wicket pointing their ship toward victory.”

Hayden was right. South Africa needed that very wicket to force a win. But Tendulkar stood between them and a 1-0 lead. Paul Harris, the South African spinner, had a few chances against Tendulkar on Sunday. But he was happy that he got a chance to bowl to Sachin in an innings that would remain as the new benchmark in international cricket.

“It was a privilege to bowl to Sachin today,” said Harris.

Tendulkar himself refused to compare the feat with any particular milestone, but the comparisons with Bradman’s feats are inevitable. If 99.94 has been the benchmark for a cricketer, the sport’s new Everest is 50 Test centuries.

Consider the 442 ODIs, over 32,000 international runs and media attention — and the arithmetic cannot measure the pressure and expectations of a billion hopes — Tendulkar’s 50 looks bigger than Bradman’s 99.94.