Sachin targets final glory after century miss at Mohali

Mar 30, 2011 |

Mohali

Tags:

India's Sachin Tendulkar led a charmed life to hit a crucial 85 in Wednesday's semi-final win against Pakistan before targetting his first World Cup title in front of his home fans in Mumbai.

Tendulkar was dropped four times in his man of the match innings to anchor India to 260-9 against their arch-rivals before his team's bowlers applied the pressure and the brakes to secure a 29-run win.

"The final in Mumbai will be a fantastic occasion. We will focus on the job in hand and try to get the job done," said Tendulkar of Saturday's title match against Sri Lanka.

Tendulkar again missed out on making 100 international centuries but had the satisfaction of having played in all five of India's World Cup wins over Pakistan.

Now he hopes to be at the forefront of Saturday's campaign where India will look to capture a second World Cup title, 28 years after their first and only triumph.

"It's always memorable to play against Pakistan and to be on the winning side five times against them is a memory I will always cherish.

"But it was a brilliant effort in the field and by the bowlers today. When we batted we had to make sure we got a fighting total. I thought 310 or 315 would have been a good par score.

"Then the ball started stopping and spinning and something closer to 270 was par."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/64835" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d03e5c1dc0ca4ac15316e1db13fe30ee" value="form-d03e5c1dc0ca4ac15316e1db13fe30ee" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86268621" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>