As soon as Tendulkar realised that it was one of those days when Dhoni could scoop even a yorker-length ball from a pacer over the long on boundary his priority was to run to the non-striker’s end and watch the world cricket’s new spectacle. Running nine of his singles with Dhoni at the other end didn’t mean Tendulkar was playing the second fiddle but he was actually being the conductor who knew from which end the high note should be played.

With two overs to go and fall of wickets becoming an irrelevant statistics on the scoreboard, Tendulkar too joined bringing down-the-shamnia-roof adventure at the IPCL Stadium that Dhoni had initiated. India putting on 107 from the last 10 overs is proof enough to show that Tendulkar can not just fly off-the-blocks at will but also breast the tape with exciting acceleration. .

But before one raises a toast to Tendulkar’s last-ball century as a No.4 batsman one must keep in mind the image of an exhausted veteran after his 37th single of the innings that took him to his 41st ODI ton. Trying to catch his breadth, he walked gingerly as he raised his bat to a standing ovation from the crowd that was busy in the combined celebration of Tendulkar’s ton and India’s 341.

Today at Vadodara, Tendulkar ran the 22 yards 54 times (37 singles, 7 twos and 1 three) and when converted it happens to be 1,000 meters of sprint or there abouts. Once in a while it’s okay, but the question is can a 33-year-old with 18 years of cricketing workload behind him be the regular high duty No.4 player?