Adam Parore: Tendulkar is the finest of our era

When Sachin Tendulkar busted the double-hundred ceiling this week I was surprised in one respect; but not in another. I doubted anyone would get to 200, as Tendulkar did against South Africa.

It seemed insurmountable, considering all the factors which must work in the batsman's favour.

That said, if anyone was going to do it, the Indian master was the obvious person to climb that mountain.

Let's face it, that's pretty fair going in 50 overs. You have to be about 100 after 25 overs, and then keep your mind on the job, and make sure your technique stays strong.

Two players have reached 194. I didn't see Charles Coventry's effort for Zimbabwe against Bangladesh, but I saw Saeed Anwar get there for Pakistan against India 13 years ago.

Anwar, a little lefthand opener, was brilliant and that day he was off the planet. He accelerated towards the end of his innings, but Tendulkar seems to have been on the pace the whole way. And he timed it to perfection, reaching 200 in the final over of the innings.

Of the others who might have got there before Tendulkar, Adam Gilchrist is the one who stood out for me. I thought he might have made it one day.

There are certain things you need to get to 200. For starters you have to open the batting, and get off to a strong start.

Second, you need to be a pretty complete player. You need to cope with the changing circumstances of the innings and you need to have help from your partners.

That is, it's pretty easy for your mates at the other end to stuff things up, either by batting slowly or hogging the strike and preventing you keeping up your momentum.

You also have a lot of hurdles to get through not only to bat 50 overs, but consider that Tendulkar had to average four runs an over for over three hours on his own. You battle tiredness, fatigue in both body and mind.

But as we've known for a long time, Tendulkar is an exceptional athlete with remarkable powers of concentration to go with his talent.

His appetite remains undiminished. Plenty of players produce formidable numbers in mid-career before tailing off towards the end, but Tendulkar is still churning out hundreds with the same efficiency he has throughout his career.

How to compare the three modern greats, Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting?

In ODIs, Tendulkar is The Man, simply the best of all time, by some distance, and that's saying something given the class of the other two. But numbers shout out his case.

This was his 46th ODI ton in 442 games; Ponting's made 29 in 340 while Lara got 19 in 299 matches. And his test record is pretty hard to argue with, having accumulated most hundreds and most runs.

That said, Lara's record was pretty tasty too. Anyone who can score 500 in a first-class innings, 400 in a test innings, to go with a 375 to claim the world record for the first time, has to be special.

Lara lacked the consistency of Tendulkar, but he could seriously hurt you once he got in.

So I have plenty of respect for the achievements of Lara and Ponting, but right now it's hard to argue against Tendulkar as the most dominant of the three.

In my book the next target for the game's finest will be passing 100 with regularity in Twenty20 internationals.

Chris Gayle is the only batsman to have done it so far, but that won't last long.

My pick is that in four or five years they'll be as common as ODI hundreds.

But another 200 in an ODI? It's hard to see that happening again.