He is a fabulous player and I’ve seen him play since junior days. I enjoy playing with him. He plays wonderful shots and it’s a treat to watch him Sachin on Sourav

Belfast: Any player would rue missing back-to-back centuries, but Sachin Tendulkar said he would not complain as long as the team was winning.

Sachin had fallen one run shy of a century in the first ODI on Tuesday and on Friday, he was out for 93, dragging a Thandi Tshabalala delivery onto his stumps.

“It’s not that I get out in the 90s deliberately. I wish I could do that in every match,” he said in lighter vein. “But as long as the team is winning, everything else is secondary,” he added.

During the course of the match, Sachin, who was adjudged man of the match, also became the first player to cross the 15,000-run mark in ODIs.

Sachin and Sourav Ganguly laid the foundation for a win with an opening stand of 134 and the batting maestro was all praise for his left-handed partner.

“He is a fabulous player and I’ve seen him play since junior days. I enjoy playing with him. He plays wonderful shots and it’s a treat to watch him,” he said.

Sachin said the pitch had enough bounce to offer, which prompted him to charge the South African attack.

“We saw the bounce in the pitch and our best chance was to counterattack. We played our shots even though we were beaten a number of times. But in the end, what matters is what is on the scoreboard.”

“I try to play according to the situation. You can’t play the same way in every match. You have to take the pitch and conditions into consideration,” he said.

Heaping praise on Sachin, captain Rahul Dravid said, “It’s good to see him dominate the bowlers again and it augurs well for the rest of the tour.”

Dravid said he had not initially planned to continue with the slow bowlers for as many as 28 overs but “one has to be flexible and plans can’t be written in stone.”

“We figured out that South Africans don’t enjoy spin in the last few overs and look for pace on the ball. Yuvraj (Singh) bowled exceptionally well and, with the bat, finished the match from a crunch situation.”

South African captain Jacques Kallis admitted that batting was difficult in the early overs of the innings and the side probably fell 20-30 runs short.

“Even then, it was a fantastic effort by the boys to fight till the end. In a close game like this, anything can happen.” (PTI)

TOP scorers IN ODIs

Sachin Tendulkar became the first player to cross the 15,000-run mark in one-day Internationals in Belfast on Friday. The Indian master blaster, who scored 93 in the second ODI against South Africa, has now scored 15,043 runs. Besides, with 1637 runs in 51 ODIs, Sachin also surpassed Steve Waugh (1581 in 47 matches) as the leading run-scorer against South Africa. The following is the list of leading ODI run-makers:

S. Tendulkar — 15043 runs in 387 matches @ 44.24

S. Jayasuriya — 12063 runs in 395 matches @ 32.96

I. Haq — 11739 runs in 378 matches @ 39.53

S. Ganguly — 10880 runs in 293 matches @ 41.68

B. Lara — 10405 runs in 299 matches @ 40.49

R. Ponting — 10395 runs in 280 matches @ 43.31

R. Dravid — 10265 runs in 317 matches @ 40.25

15 steps to the SUMMIT

1000 runs — in 36 matches, vs Zimbabwe in Hamilton on March 7, 1992

2000 — in 73 matches, vs UAE in Sharjah on April 13, 1994

3000 — in 96 matches, vs Sri Lanka in Sharjah on April 9, 1995

4000 — in 115 matches, vs South Africa in Sharjah on April 17, 1996

5000 — in 141 matches, vs South Africa in Durban on Feb. 12, 1997

6000 — in 176 matches, vs Pakistan in Dhaka on Jan.14, 1998

7000 — in 196 matches, vs Sri Lanka in Colombo on July 7, 1998

8000 — in 217 matches, vs Pakistan in Manchester on Jun. 8, 1999

9000 — in 242 matches, vs South Africa in Nagpur on March 19, 2000

10,000 — in 266 matches, vs Australia in Indore on March 31, 2001

11,000 — in 284 matches, vs England in Kanpur on Jan. 28, 2002

12,000 — in 309 matches, vs Pakistan in Centurion on March 1, 2003

13,000 — in 220 matches, vs Pakistan in Rawalpindi on March 16, 2004

14,000 — in 359 matches, vs Pakistan in Peshawar on Feb. 6, 2006

15,000 — in 387 matches, vs SA in Belfast on June 29, 2007