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India was set to tour Pakistan for a four-test series in 1989, when a young Mumbai-boy named Sachin Tendulkar was drafted in the squad. Little did the world know of the history that man would go on to create.
Happened on 15th November 1989
Tendulkar was picked in the XI for all the tests, primarily as a lower order batter who was handy with the ball as well. Hosted in Karachi from 9-14 December, captain Srikkanth won the toss and chose for India to field first. After the early wicket of opener Aamer Malik, they offered strong resistance. Fifties for Shoaib Mohammad & Javed Miandad and a hundred by the Pakistani captain had helped them set a commanding total of 409. Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar were the picks among the bowlers as they racked 9 out of the 10 wickets between them.
Pakistan was quick to bring trouble of the visitors as the scorecard read the loss of 3 wickets for only 13 runs. Early wickets meant trouble, but it also meant that Sachin was going to come in to bat early. The 16-year-old had created buzz in the domestic and national circuits and cricket know-it-alls including several legends like Gavaskar and Kapil Dev were interested to see how the youngster would perform against the most formidable bowling attack in World Cricket.
Sachin came in to bat after the 4th wicket (being sent above Ravi Shastri) but had a short-lived stay in his first ever international outing. A piece of trivia from that test: it was also the game where Waqar Younis made his international debut. And he had a rather fantastic time playing, taking the wicket of his fellow debutante and 3 other Indians.
Sachin scored 15 runs in 24 balls which included 2 boundaries. When asked about Sachin and if he had sensed anything special about him, Waqar said no, but he was impressed with the way Sachin had bat for the first time internationally. His two boundaries had come off of 2 drives that he described as “elegant and classy”.
India had gotten bowled out for 262 despite the resilience of the lower middle order (Ravi Shastri 45, Kapil Dev 55 and Kiran More 58) and had conceded a healthy 147 runs lead to Pakistan. Pakistan had all but won the game had it not been cut short.
Pakistan’s no. 3, Shoaib Mohammad, contributed yet again, this time with a 95. We also saw Saleem Malik score a hundred as he and his captain batted through to Pakistan’s declaration at the score of 305/5.
It was highly unlikely that would chase down a total of 453, but they seemed to be in control in their second innings. Good scores through the batting order as Navjot Singh Sidhu scored 85 and Sanjay Manjarekar stayed not-out for 113. The match was declared to be a draw at the end of 96 overs when India stood at 303/3.
Although we couldn’t see more of Sachin in that game, he was quick to leave his mark as a dominant batsman. He scored his maiden international century in the second test and got scores like 35, 41 and 57 in the remaining games. The MOTM for the first test was adjourned to be Kapil for his resilient 55 in the first innings and the 7 wickets he had taken across the two innings.
Nobody had really gotten a whiff of the greatness that Tendulkar was going to project on the sport. More than two decades later, with more than 34,000 runs and 100 international centuries under his belt, Sachin is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen to have ever stepped foot on earth.
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