India and Pakistan have played some iconic Tests in the past, but the 1999 test between both sides at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai was one of the most iconic games between both sides. It was a game that went on till the very last day, and it had a lot of twists and turns.
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India took a lead of 16 runs in the 1st innings, and the spinners dominated the proceedings. Anil Kumble took 6 wickets for the Indian team, whereas the spin duo of Saqlain Mushtaq and Shahid Afridi took 8 wickets for the Pakistan side. In the 2nd innings, Afridi scored a century and Pakistan managed to score 286 runs. India got the target of 271 runs to win the match.
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The Indian batters failed to make a mark in the 2nd innings, but Sachin Tendulkar was adamant to win. He got good support from Nayan Mongia, who scored 52 runs. Tendulkar completed his century, and it was looking like the Indian team will win this match, but it was not meant to be.
Tendulkar got out as the 7th wicket at the team’s score of 254 runs, and the team then bundled out for just 258 runs. Pakistan won the match by 12 runs, and they got a round of applause from Chennai’s crowd. Tendulkar won the Man of the Match despite losing. He has won 76 Man of the Match awards in his career, out of which 6 have come in losing cause, the most for any player.
Sachin Tendulkar once refused to accept a match award in a losing cause
Raj Singh Dungarpur revealed an interesting incident about the 1999 Chennai Test between India and Pakistan. He said Tendulkar proved his commitment in that match. Dungarpur said that Tendulkar was weeping like a schoolboy despite playing so well as he felt that he lost the match for the team.
Dungapur insisted that it’s very tough for someone to win the Man of the Match award despite losing the match. He also revealed that Tendulkar did not even come to receive the award as he crying in the dressing room.
“I think it’s fair for me to say he was weeping like a schoolboy. I kept on telling him why are you taking all the blame on himself. By then, we had lost the match, you made the impossible possible by playing that way, he said no sir, I have lost this match,” Raj Singh Dungarpur said.
“We were on the podium, I think very few times do you get a Man of the Match on the losing side. I asked Anshuman Gaikdwad, the coach of the Indian team about Tendulkar, but Gaikdwad signaled that he is not coming.”
Raj Singh Dungarpur was a former cricketer and president of the BCCI, he also was a selector of the Indian national team for a couple of terms. He took 206 wickets in 86 first-class matches and also scored 1292 runs with the bat. Once Kapil Dev revealed that Dungarpur was the one who first called him to bowl to a young Tendulkar in nets.
