This morning (UK time) Sachin Tendulkar set a new record for the most runs scored in test match cricket, passing Brian Lara’s previous best total of 11,953. It is a proud record that very few people have achieved. Lara only held it for a couple of years, and Tendulkar will probably surrender it to Ricky Ponting in a few years time. The list of players who have held the record is suitably impressive: Alan Border, Sunil Gavaskar, Geoffrey Boycott, Wally Hammond, and so on. Sky had a very nice list of each one and how long they had held the record, but I don’t have access to that data right now. Gavaskar was at the ground in Mohali today to see his fellow Indian take the record, and was apparently yelling suggestions from the back of the commentary box as Mark Nicholas and Ravi Shastri tried to report on the moment. The ground authorities had laid on fireworks which stopped play for several minutes. It was something of a party atmosphere.

But there is one thing worth noting. Tendulkar is unlikely to ever beat Lara’s record of 400 in a single innings, and no one is ever likely to better Sir Donald Bradman’s career average of 99 runs per innings, but the Little Master now holds the record for the most runs and most centuries in both test match and one day cricket. That’s quite an achievement.