On 22 April 1998, Sachin Tendulkar produced what many consider one of the greatest knocks ever played in the history of limited-overs cricket. In testing weather conditions of Sharjah, the Indian team led by Mohammad Azharuddin were in a must-win game against the mighty Australian side that had won three successive matches in the tournament till then.
It didn’t help India’s cause that Australia batted first and posted a daunting 284/7 with Michael Bevan scoring an unbeaten ton. Given that the Australian attack boasted of bowlers like Shane Warne, Damien Fleming and Michael Kasprowics, it was going to a mountainous task for the Indian team.
Little did the Indian fans know that a Sachin Tendulkar masterclass was about to come in the second half of the match. Neither the sandstorm- that halted the Indian half of the innings for half an hour- or the star-studded Aussie attack could stop the Tendulkar from guiding India to a place in the finals as he reached a hundred.
The ‘Little Master’ took the attack to the Aussie bowlers and scored boundaries at will against the likes of Warne and Fleming. By the time, the Master departed he had 143 runs against his name which came from 131 deliveries. He hit 9 fours and five sixes in this innings.
Despite Sachin’s 100, India fell short of the revised target of 276 off 46 overs by 26 runs but his innings was enough to help India cross the required 237 run mark to end up ahead of New Zealand and claim a place in the finals.
“Given the conditions in the month of April – the temperatures are really high and you can feel the heat going through your shoes and socks – and the first thing you want to do is to put your feet in the ice bucket,” Cricket Australia’s digital content team had quoted Tendulkar as saying about the inning in 2018.
“In my case, that was one experience which I remember how tough it was to stay there and play the best team in the world,” he had said.
“Australia was Number 1 at that stage and to beat them so convincingly was extremely satisfying.”
Two days later, India met the same opponent at the same venue in the finals and Tendulkar produced yet another century and this time helped India beat Australia and lift the cup. Sachin ended up with 435 runs from five games in the tournament.