With the Mumbai atrocities still fresh in the mind, the incredible chase, and Tendulkar’s fourth-innings century made everybody smile – and not just Indians
17-Dec-2008
Finally Tendulkar slays his fourth-innings demon © AFP
“My dream has come true. I have won a Test for India with Tendulkar.”
Yuvraj Singh has played 222 ODIs, scored 10 centuries, won 17 Man-of-the-Match awards, but came of age in this Test“I’ve scored a hundred in the second innings, but to actually win a match, play the winning shot, that was something I wanted to do. This makes it really, really special.”
Times”Make no mistake, this will be a bitter pill to swallow.”
“At this stage, when the whole country was demoralised after what happened in Mumbai, India needed something symbolic to lift their spirits, and this wonderful victory will make everybody feel a little better, although the wounds of Mumbai won’t heal completely.”
Sunil Gavaskar, another Mumbaikar, on what the victory means to India“Ravi Shastri interviewed Tendulkar and Yuvraj after the match was over, and Shastri said Tendulkar’s hair was standing when he said he did this for Mumbai … Cricket has been a terrific healer – ask the 35,000 people who were in the ground today.”
David Lloyd is wide-eyed with wonder“Yuvraj played his perfect part, but the day, the match and the country demanded it belong to Tendulkar. It could not have been scripted more perfectly: a boundary to win the match and complete a century. It had to have been preordained. Had to be.”
Some things are just meant to be, Mike Selvey says“This Test was a great advertisement for Test cricket. It is probably the best possible time that we could have had a Test like this. As you can see, a Test win is somehow more memorable than a Twenty20 or one-day international win.”
“The humdinger of a match […] embodied the essence of cricket, maybe of all sport.”
Independent
