'I Ended Up Making Sure...': When Dinesh Karthik Denied Sachin Tendulkar His Century

Sachin Tendulkar turns 51 today, and on the occasion, the great man’s former India teammate, Dinesh Karthik, was asked about his good and bad memories with Tendulkar. The RCB stumper revealed that denying the cricketing great his century in a match was the worst memory he has with the legend, and to this day, he gets a lot of flak for it.

In a video shared by the Royal Challengers Bengaluru social media channel, Karthik talks about meeting Tendulkar for the first time before chronicling the instance where he left Tendulkar stranded on 97 not out (96*).

“Well, I can give you good memory, bad memory. Good memory being the fact that the first time I met him, it was on top of a flyover. We were going in a bus en route to the airport and he joined in his car and just got into the bus midway. That’s the first time I ever seen the man in my life. So that is a good memory,” remembered Karthik.

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“Bad memory was 97, not out. We needed four runs to win and I hit a six. So, I ended up making sure that he didn’t get the hundred, Till today, I get a lot of grief for it and rightly so. Understandable,” he added.

The match Karthik is talking about was the 3rd ODI between India and Sri Lanka at Cuttack in 2009. Chasing 239 to win, Tendulkar and Karthik took India home with seven wickets in hand and 45 deliveries remaining. The duo put on an unbeaten stand of 74 runs for the fourth wicket.

Tendulkar was stranded on 96 not out in that match, four short of what could have been his 46th ODI century. Karthik’s recollection of the chase’s final moments varies slightly from what transpired in the match.

It was a pivotal moment in the match when Karthik, then a rookie in the team, hit spinner Suraj Randiv for a six, bringing down the equation to seven runs required to win. Tendulkar, at that point, needed nine runs to reach his century. In the next over, Tendulkar hit a boundary off Lasith Malinga and then took a single. However, the real reason why Tendulkar missed out on a hundred was Malinga, who bowled one full down the pads to Karthik, and the delivery went for five wides, signaling the end of the game. India won the game, and Tendulkar remained stranded on 96.

This was the only occasion on which Tendulkar remained unbeaten in the 90s in his ODI career. He had gotten out 17 times in the 90s in ODIs.

For Such a Small Guy to Have Such a Huge Presence: Faf Du Plessis

RCB skipper Faf du Plessis also remembered the first time he met Sachin Tendulkar and said the one thing that stood out was for a small guy Tendulkar had a huge presence.

“I remember the first memory playing for South Africa against India was just, wow. When you walk in, you saw Sachin batting there for the first time because it was someone that I looked up to as a young kid and always admired his consistency. I think that for me was the biggest thing that always stood out. But seeing him for the first time and for such a small guy to have such a huge presence was a thing that stood out for me that first time I played against him,” said du Plessis.

I Used to Always Put My Bag Down Right Next to Him: Glenn Maxwell

Glenn Maxwell also shared a heartwarming anecdote about Tendulkar when he was with the Mumbai Indians. Maxwell used to keep his bag next to Tendulkar’s in the MI dressing room just to have the chance to talk to him.

“So when I played at Mumbai [Indians] in 2013 with Sachin, I remember the first few weeks of the tournament, I just made sure that as soon as we walked in the change room somewhere and Sachin put his bag down, I used to always put my bag down right next to him. Just talked to him as much as I possibly could, try and drain him of any knowledge that he could potentially give me. And he was very giving his time to me. Someone who I used to watch train a lot. We had some great chats about the game on and off the field, which was very nice of him. I wasn’t even really playing at that time, but he was very given of his time,” remembered Maxwell.