SACHIN TENDULKAR would have amassed 20,480 runs and 81 centuries in the next 10 years if he maintains his present form, according to an assessment by Wisden cricket monthly.
In the past 27 months since February 1999 Tendulkar had piled up 1720 runs in 15 Tests at a near Bradmanesque average of 71.67, it said.
Should Tendulkar continue at that rate in the next decade, playing 12 Tests a year and hang up his boot at the age of 38, he will have amassed 20,480 and 81 centuries in 202 Tests.
His average will be a cool 66.06, placing him all alone on a unique second tier of champion batsmen – still behind Bradman (99.94) but distinctly ahead of Pollock, Headley and Herbert Sutcliffe (60-odds), Wisden wrote.
The jury is still out on whether he would have outbudgeoned Don Bradman if he had been around in the run-thirsty 1930s, but the Indian maestro had two sweet statistics to savour on his 28th birthday in April, Wisden writes in a piece headlined “Tendulkar the great (and getting greater)”.