‘Master Blaster’ Sachin Tendulkar scored his 99th international ton against South Africa at Nagpur during the group stage encounter at the 2011 ODI World Cup.
Since then, each time Sachin stepped on the field to take guard, he had a massive burden of expectation from the fans for reaching the magical figure of hundred hundreds.
It took the batting maestro 34 innings to finally reach the milestone, which came against Bangladesh in 2012.
In the interim, ardent supporters had to deal with the heartbreak, each time he was at the cusp of achieving the milestone.
One of the occasions arrived during the fifth and final Test match of India’s forgetful England tour in 2011.
England all-rounder Tim Bresnan managed to put an end to Sachin’s fluent knock at the Oval, which was also his final outing in England. Sachin was caught in front of his stumps off an incoming delivery from Bresnan, as he fell nine short of the landmark.
Now, recalling the incident, Bresnan has revealed about him and standing umpire Rod Tucker, receiving death threats, for dismissing Tendulkar on 91.
“We both got death threats, me and this umpire. We got death threats for ages after. I got them on Twitter, and he had people writing to him to his home address and stuff, getting proper death threats going,” Bresnan made the revelation during Yorkshire Cricket’s ‘Covers Off’ podcast.
“‘How dare you give him out? It was missing leg.’ I caught up with him (Tucker) a few months later, and he was like, ‘Mate, I’ve had to get a security guard and stuff.’ He had police protection around his gaff in Australia,” added the former England International.
Watching the dismissal with a naked eye, it appeared as if the ball would have gone on to miss the leg-stump.
However, the ball just managed to clip the leg-stump. Had Indians opted for DRS, the decision would have stayed with the standing umpire.
“He was on 99 international hundreds, and there were no referrals in that series because the BCCI didn’t like them,” said Bresnan.
During the five-match Test series, the then number one side in the world was whitewashed by the hosts by 5-0 sweeping.
“It was at The Oval in the last Test of the series. This ball, it was probably missing leg anyway, and umpire Hill (Tucker), Aussie lad, shot him out. He was on 80-odd as well (91), definitely going to get it (the 100th ton). But we won the series and went to number one in the world,” concluded Bresnan.
