At the 1996 World Cup, Sachin Tendulkar was already established at 23 as one of cricket’s finest batting prodigies. He was that dangerous that even the mighty Australian bowling attack comprised of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, and Damien Fleming, fell into terror.
Today, in 1996, he played only one of his truly memorable innings at the World Cup against mighty Australia on February 27.
No, it had nothing to do with his hundred international centuries; rather, this was a heroic 90 that might have gone practically in vain. But that moment would forever remain in the annals of cricket history. Tendulkar produced something so magical that the legendary Shane Warne had nightmares about it. The Aussie spinner went on to confess about it at the end of the 90s.
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India had recorded victories over Hong Kong and Zimbabwe prior to playing Australia at the Wankhede Stadium. Mark Waugh got Australia off to a blazing start, scoring 126 off 135 balls, while opening partner Mark Taylor registered 59 runs.
Among the other Australian batters, only Stuart Law could get into double figures as they folded their innings with 258 runs. India did a splendid job in the field as they logged as many as five run-outs. Venkatesh Prasad and Venkatpathy Raju took two wickets each, while Anil Kumble got one.
India then had some bad news to deal with as they lost one of their openers, Ajay Jadeja, early in the chase. Vinod Kambli also returned with a two-ball duck while skipper Mohammad Azharuddin and Manoj Prabhakar managed 10 and three runs, respectively. Sachin Tendulkar was the only Indian batter of note; Manjrekar had gone three down with only 70 on the slate.
With wickets starting to fall at the other end, Tendulkar launched a counterattack on the Australian bowling. He smashed ten runs in an over of Warne, who conceded only 28 in his full spell at an economy rate of 2.8.
In no time, Tendulkar raced to his fifty and became even more aggressive thereafter. He scored 90 runs of 84 balls before being dismissed by Mark Waugh. His powerful innings featured 14 boundaries and one six. Despite Tendulkar’s efforts, India fell short of the target by 16 runs.
