Sachin Tendulkar more or less sits on top of every international batting record. But when it comes to scoring double hundreds in Test cricket, Sachin doesn’t even feature in the top 10. Like Marvan Atapattu, Virender Sehwag, Javed Miandad, Younis Khan, and Ricky Ponting, Sachin too has six double hundreds in Test cricket but he is at No. 12 in the list which is led by Don Bradman (12 double tons), because he has taken the most number of matches (200) to do so. Highlighting the same point, India’s 1983 World Cup-winning captain and legendary all-rounder Kapil Dev said Sachin Tendulkar knew how to score centuries but he couldn’t quite master the art of turning them into double and triple hundreds.
“Sachin had so much talent that I hadn’t seen it in anyone. He knew how to score hundreds but he never became a ruthless batsman. Sachin had everything in cricket. He knew how to score hundreds but didn’t know how to convert those hundreds into 200s &300s,” Kapil Dev told former India cricketer and current women’s team head coach WV Raman in an interview.
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Kapil said the kind of talent Sachin had, he should have scored at least five triple centuries – Tendulkar has none – and 10 more double tons.
“Sachin should’ve made five triple centuries and another 10 double tons because he could hit fast bowlers and spinners for a boundary every over,” Kapil added.
Amazingly, Sachin who has 51 Test hundreds – the most – took 10 years to score his first double hundred. It came in 1999 against New Zealand in Ahmedabad. In fact, out of Tendulkar’s 51 hundreds, only 20 have turned out to be scores of above 150. Sachin, however, was the first batsman to score an ODI double hundred against South Africa in 2010.
{{/usCountry}}Amazingly, Sachin who has 51 Test hundreds – the most – took 10 years to score his first double hundred. It came in 1999 against New Zealand in Ahmedabad. In fact, out of Tendulkar’s 51 hundreds, only 20 have turned out to be scores of above 150. Sachin, however, was the first batsman to score an ODI double hundred against South Africa in 2010.
{{/usCountry}}Explaining the reasons behind Sachin’s fewer number of double tons, Kapil, who has not only played a lot of cricket with Tendulkar but also coached him in international cricket, said, it has a lot to do with his Mumbai roots.
“Since he was from Mumbai they had a mindset of when you score a hundred make a line and start from zero again. And that’s where I said no, you are such a ruthless cricketer, bowlers should fear you. Sachin’s talent was par excellence. But after a scoring a hundred he used to take singles and didn’t become ruthless,” Kapil added.
For the record, current India captain Virat Kohli has most number of double hundreds (7) in Test cricket and only two Indians have scored triple tons - Virender Sehwag (2) and Karun Nair.
Sachin retired from international cricket in 2013 after scoring 15921 runs in 200 Test matches at an average of 54.04 and 18,426 runs in 463 ODIs at an average of 44.83.