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The best of India vs New Zealand in ODIs: Sachin Tendulkar 186*, Rahul Dravid 153 and a partnership for the ages
In November of 1999, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid destroyed the New Zealand bowling attack.
February 24, 2010, is when Sachin Tendulkar became, in Ravi Shastri’s immortal words, ‘the first man on the planet to score a double century’ in ODIs, but not many recall how 11 years prior to creating history in Gwalior, the Master Blaster registered his highest individual score in one-day internationals at the expense of a hapless New Zealand bowling attack. In a series often put on the back burner, Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid scripted a piece of cricket history that remained unbeaten for the next 16 years.
In the fall of 1999, New Zealand landed in India for a full-fledged tour comprising three Tests and five ODIs. Under Tendulkar, India took the Test series 1-0 after surviving a scare in the first innings of the opening game in Mohali, where the home team was bowled out for 83. Still, Anil Kumble took 10 wickets in Kanpur to spin India to an 8-wicket win. As the action moved on to ODIs, New Zealand sought revenge and drew first blood, beating India by 43 runs in a high-scoring game at Rajkot. However, in the next game at Hyderabad, India returned the favour, and in some style.
Six months removed from India’s demolition of Sri Lanka in the 1999 World Cup at Taunton, Rahul Dravid, who was at one stage considered a misfit for ODIs, proved why he’s anything but, by being involved in yet another 300-plus partnership. Back then, it was with Sourav Ganguly. This time, the partner in crime is his captain, Tendulkar. If the world thought 318 would take some beating, Dravid and Tendulkar proved otherwise, bettering it by adding a record partnership of 331. It was the highest partnership for any wicke, and even today, it takes the third place in the list, after Marlon Samuels and Chris Gayle’s 372 against Zimbabwe at the 2015 World Cup and Shai Hope and John Campbell’s 365.
The Tendulkar of before
The year before, Tendulkar had set Sharjah alight with his twin centuries against Australia that won India the Coca-Cola Cup. Here, he bettered his knock of 143 by remaining unbeaten on 186, and for the first time since his return from the back injury that pulled him down and threatened to end his career, showed signs of his brutal power hitting. India plundered 376/2, while New Zealand’s top three pacers – Chris Cairns, Shayne O’Connor and debutant Chris Drum bled runs. Drum, who went for 9.4 an over, wasn’t allowed to complete his quota of 10 overs as Tendulkar and Dravid annihilated him with some ridiculous shots in 1999.
It didn’t matter what they bowled. Drum’s yorkers were helicoptered for six, long before the term Helicopter shot was invented. A year in which Tendulkar had already played some epic innings for India – 136 at Chennai against Pakistan, and 120 against Sri Lanka in the Aiwa Cup, and the emotional unbeaten 140 against Kenya, this shellacking of the Kiwi bowlers often goes unmentioned but deserves to be right up there.
And then there was Dravid, bettering his 145 rampage in England by a career-best 153. Dravid could never go past in, but with 15 fours and two sixes, the Wall’s run-a-ball blitzkrieg somewhere got lost in the annals of history. It was a breakout year for Dravid in a lot of ways. With 461 runs in 8 matches, Dravid emerged as the leading run-getter in the 1999 World Cup, including two hundreds. He had already scored a century against New Zealand in his first match of the year, and with finished with one in India’s final series of 1999. Add to that his gritty 103 against West Indies on a testing Singapore pitch and 103 against Sri Lanka in Nagpur, Dravid finished the year with 1761 runs from 43 matches at a fine average of 46.34, higher than Tendulkar.
