Danny Morrison recalls denying teenage Sachin Tendulkar the tag of youngest Test centurion 

Tendulkar scored a brilliant 88 but couldn't rewrite history books in Napier.

Sachin Tendulkar | AFP It was only Sachin Tendulkar's second Test series, but former New Zealand quick Danny Morrison remembers feeling there is definitely something special about this 16-year-old. 

Morrison bowled to Tendulkar in what was his own third Test in Napier in February 1990, when he denied the teenage sensation the tag of becoming the youngest ever Test centurion in the history of the game. 

Read Also -  "Chance to bowl against Sachin Tendulkar really thrilled me": Brett Lee 

Batting at No.6 against an attack also including the great Richard Hadlee, Tendulkar scored 88 runs in 266 deliveries, falling short of the milestone by just 12. But the way he batted for those runs, Morrison and the rest of the New Zealand team knew he is in for a long haul at the international level. 

"Ken Rutherford captained one of the President’s XI [teams], against [India] and Sachin played the tour game, and I remember Rutherford discussing at a team meeting, ‘This guy has a lot of time and looks a very, very special talent.’ I suppose, in a way, it was sort of ridiculous because he was like a guy who could have been in the first year of school. He was 17 (16)," Morrison said on 'The Edges & Sledged podcast'. 

"Here he was playing international cricket and looked beautiful getting into line, sometimes leaving Richard Hadlee with a beautiful shape and that. I mean, early on, it’s going to be intimidating, like for all of us, your first Test match, first series."

"I think he had played one (four) Test(s) against Pakistan. This was the actual first (second) full series he was getting and he was up against Hadlee, who was... I mean, yeah, at the end of his career, but still, one hell of a bowler," he added. 

Getting out caught by John Wright, Tendulkar couldn't overtake Pakistan's Mushtaq Mohammad, whose 101 against India in 1961, came at the age of 17 years and 78 days. 

“When I look at that and remember, yeah, a couple of shots... I remember the 88 he got in Napier, and he was in such a hurry! I think he hit me for three fours in this one over, and you could see that impetuous nature of the youth and he wanted to keep going, he ended up smashing me to John Wright (at mid-off)," recalled Morrison, now a renowned commentator.

“That was it, and hence saying he was so impetuous because he could have been the youngest ever, and you could see it took him an age to get off the ground. [It was] like a snowball rolling down the hill, getting bigger and bigger, just getting boom, boom, boom until it went bust, sort of hit a tree down the mountain, which was a shame for Indian fans because he was going so beautifully. Got out for 88."

"But that’s the game, he could have been out on the second ball or whatever, playing a shot like that, but he was on a roll. Real talent, no doubt about that," he concluded. 

Tendulkar finally made his first Test hundred later that year, when in Manchester he helped India escape with a draw. 

He ended his career in 2013 as the game's highest run-scorer in both Tests and ODIs. 

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 31 Jul, 2020

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