Sachin Tendulkar's Hyderabad epic brought back memories of the legendary Chennai Test in 1999 against Pakistan, when he fought cramps to take India so close to the finish line. AR Hemant does a forensic analysis of both scorecards and discovers some bizarre and startling parallels. Read on in India Today.

Before Chennai, India had never lost a Test match in which Mongia scored fifty or more (five fifties and a hundred).

Before Hyderabad, India had never lost an ODI in which Raina score fifty or more (11 fifties, two hundreds).

In a piece on Rediff.com which has plenty of theology thrown in, Prem Panicker tries to make sense of the Sachin Tendulkar phenomenon in the wake of the glittering 175 against Australia. After saying Tendulkar is treated like god by Indian fans, Panicker asks of the constant references to the batsman's statistical achievements such as the 17,000-run milestone: "Is 'god' god, if you have to parse his deeds against those of the mortals?"

Here his description of the 175:

It was all there, every single element of the Tendulkar mythos: the majestic certitude of the straight-backed thumps through cover and extra cover; the nonchalant ease of his many waltzes down the wicket to hit straight with slide rule precision; the calm certitude with which he repeatedly split the field and, when it was drawn in tight, carried it; the unparalleled balance of his many whips off hips and pads; the schoolboy cheek of the impossibly late cut; the exuberant energy with which he repeatedly traversed the 22 yard strip for singles taken with the judgment of a Solomon

Tendulkar's endurance remains a source of wonder to Panicker.

What does it say of Tendulkar that having raised the bar to impossible heights in 1998, he is able to effortlessly vault over it 11 years later?

We have for the space of two decades repeatedly witnessed the alchemy of genius effortlessly convert the impossible into the seemingly inevitable.

In his column for the Hindustan Times, Ravi Shastri says Tendulkar will need another special effort if India are to stay alive in this series.

	Feedback