One of my best innings, but disappointed: Tendulkar

By Rahul Bajaj
for Cricketain.com

Published: November 6, 2009

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Hyderabad: Sachin Tendulkar once again proved on Thursday why he is considered the one of the best, if not the best, batsmen to have set foot on a cricket field. The batting maestro himself rated his 175 in the fifth one-dayer as one of his best knocks but added that he was still disappointed by the way things ended.

Tendulkar scored 175 off 141 balls, a knock during which he went past the landmark of 17,000 ODI runs, the first batsman to do so. At the end of the match Tendulkar stands at 17,168 runs with 45 hundreds to his credit. But his magical innings couldn’t prevent India from losing the match against a fighting Australian side.

“I thought we started off really well then lost wickets. Suresh (Raina) and I had a good partnership but in the end, it was disappointing. The pressure to keep scoring runs was there and we took it very close. But I feel it was one of my best knocks,” said Tendulkar, who was adjudged the Man of the Match.

When asked, what keeps him going? He has been playing for India for 20 years now but the hunger is still there. How does he keep himself motivated? Tendulkar replied, “I care about playing for India, it’s a passion and I have been absolutely honoured to play for India for so long.”

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said that the match was lost due to mental calculation. “They got off to a good start and we never got into a position to contain them. It was up to us to chase it. We got a good start and we came in the end due to Tendulkar and Raina. We lost it in our mental calculation, not because of our talent. It was one of the good ODI tracks we have seen in India, you have to be smart. Hopefully we will be up for the next two games,” he said.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting also applauded Tendulkar for playing one of the best knocks in his 20-year-old career. “It was one of the amazing games and certainly one of the best innings ever from Sachin. Sachin didn’t play many bad shots today! It’s really unbelievable how we have played, considering all the injuries,” he said.

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