1998
Two nights in Sharjah
Sachin Tendulkar made 143 against Australia on 22 April 1998, in a match interrupted by a sandstorm and lost, and 134 against the same attack in the final two days later, on his twenty-fifth birthday, and won. The two cards read like one innings with a rest day.
There are two cards. On the first, Australia 284 for seven, India 250 for five in 46 overs, Australia won by 26 runs, revised target. On the second, Australia 272 for nine, India 275 for four in 48.3 overs, India won by six wickets. On both, the player of the match is Sachin Tendulkar, for 143 from 131 balls and then for 134 from 131 balls.
The twenty-second
Australia batted first and made 284 for seven, Michael Bevan 101 not out and Mark Waugh 81. India needed 276 to win, or, as the card’s note puts it, 254 to pass New Zealand on net run rate and reach the final. The note goes on: a sandstorm disrupted play by about 25 minutes, and after the break the target was 276 to win in 46 overs, or 237 in 46 to qualify.
Full scorecard: Australia v India, Coca-Cola Cup, 6th match, Sharjah, 22 April 1998 →
Tendulkar was caught behind off Damien Fleming for 143 at 242 in the 43rd over, with nine fours and five sixes. India finished on 250 for five, 26 short of the revised winning target and 13 past the qualifying one. The card’s points line reads Australia 2, India 0, and its result is a defeat. It was the defeat that put India in the final.
The twenty-fourth
Australia batted first again and were 26 for three in the sixth over. Steve Waugh made 70 and Darren Lehmann 70, and the total was 272 for nine.
India were 39 for one and then 128 for two, and Tendulkar was leg before to Michael Kasprowicz for 134 at 248 in the 45th over, with twelve fours and three sixes. Mohammad Azharuddin made 58 and was caught behind at 261. Hrishikesh Kanitkar was 6 not out from two balls, one of them a four, and the winning runs came with nine balls to spare. Ajay Jadeja was 11 not out at the other end.
Full scorecard: Australia v India, Coca-Cola Cup final, Sharjah, 24 April 1998 →
What the cards share
The same ground, the same opposition, the same attack with Mark Waugh added for three overs in the final, and the same batter facing exactly 131 balls each time. The first card lists Shane Warne’s figures as nine overs for 39 and the second as ten for 61; Kasprowicz, nine for 55 and then ten for 48; Fleming, ten for 46 and then ten for 47. Tendulkar took 277 runs off the same attack in two evenings.
The second card lists the tournament prizes. Player of the series, Tendulkar, 435 runs. Fastest fifty, Tendulkar, 44 balls. Most sixes, Tendulkar, nine. Bowler of the series, Fleming, who dismissed him in the first match, and fielder of the series, Ricky Ponting.
The birthday
The final was played on 24 April. Tendulkar was born on 24 April 1973, so the 134 was made on his twenty-fifth birthday. The card does not note it, since a card records a date and not what it means to the people on it.
What made it unrepeatable
A sandstorm rewrote the target of one match and the arithmetic of a tournament, and a batter answered the new sum to within 13 runs on the right side. Two days later, with nothing to recalculate, he did it again against the same men. The umpires both nights included Steve Bucknor, who counted the overs before the storm and after it.
What the cards hold
A note about 25 minutes of sand. Two targets on one card, one for winning and one for qualifying. A 143 in a defeat and a 134 in a final, from the same number of balls. And two result lines two days apart, Australia won and India won, that the same man is under.
••••••
No. 12 in Unrepeatable, a series of 22.
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