Cricbeat

Saeed Anwar, Adam Gilchrist, Sir Viv Richards, Sanath Jaysuriya, Sourav Ganguly- nearly every worthy batsman tried to score 200 but no one could reach to it. Finally, the record went to the man who deserved it the most. Cricket took 40 years and 2961 ODIs to show us the man who deserved this record.

Sir Viv Richards made 189* in 1984, Saeed Anwar broke this record in 1997 after 13 years. And now, in 2010, Sachin crossed Saeed's tally after 13 years.

He is leading runs scorer in two forms of game(i.e Test Cricket and ODIs), has most centuries in two forms of game. He has over 30,000 Runs(about which a batsman can only dream) in International Cricket, 93 International centuries, 93 fifties in ODI Cricket, he is leading runs scorer in World Cup Cricket, the only record which was missing under his belt is finally achieved by him, becoming the first batsman in history of Cricket to score 200 runs in an innings of a ODI Match.

Gwalior was honoured by Sachin's this feat, where Sachin didn't only made the record of highest individual innings but also most fours hit by a batsman in an innings, on his way to 200 Sachin hit 25 fours which is also a world record itself.

All the greatest players, current and past, have hailed Sachin's this effort. When Sachin was close to this feat, it just couldn't stop Shane Warne to tweet: "Come on Sachin my friend get your 200. World record to please! You deserve it… Nervous for my good friend Sachin everything crossed for you mate… Glad I'm not bowling to him today ha ha ha."

Another good thing was that Sachin achieved this milestone against a quality team and a quality bowling attack, it wasn't against any minnow. And now this feat will at least lull his critics for a while, who believe that Sachin bats only against minnows. But they forget the fact that even if we take Sachin's centuries, against minnows, out of equation then still he holds the record for most centuries in ODI Career.