How Sachin Tendulkar became the No.1 ODI run getter

by Karthik Atchuta 

The graph race depicts our favorite 90s batting heroes show down from their debut till retirement. These famous 90s cricketers have made many childhoods special with their batting performance. Some orthodox, some challenging the norms, some pure rebels. Interesting to see how a man started off slow but went on to become one of the greatest batting stars of all time.

Criteria: Famous batting stars who prevailed and achieved peak during the 1990-2000 period. Players like TM Dilshan and Mahele Jayawardene are excluded as they achieved peak in the next decade though they made their debuts in the late 90s.

With Mohammad Azharuddin taking a good lead in the majority of 90s, it was the Sachin-Lara show down in the mid 90s which sparked the excitement, who went to become batting greats for their respective nations. It might have taken Sachin Tendulkar some time to take the lead but he held it for a life time.

There was a clear Asian batting dominance powered by Sri Lankan batting power house Aravinda de Silva and his skipper of 1996 World Cup Arjuna Ranatunga. The dominance further strengthened with the rise of Inzamam-ul-Haq and Saeed Anwar’s prolific rise in the late 90s. It was Ricky Ponting in the mid-first decade of 21st century who challenged the Top 5 in a strong way. Ricky Ponting has piled runs and also World Cup trophies for Australia in that period.

The graph comes to a stand still by the end of 2010s but that set stage for a ever young Shahid Afridi who piled up some runs and got to the top of ladder by a few notches. Hope this graph race served statistically and nostalgically in refreshing our minds back to those glory days of cricket.