Michael Hussey, a former Australian cricketer, joked that had he joined the national team sooner, he could have scored 5,000 more than the Indian cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar. Hussey is among the most successful batters in all forms with a total of 12, 398 runs on an average of 49 with 22 centuries in 302 games.
Although successful in the domestic professional career, Hussey made his international debut at the age of 28. He played in the 2007 ODI world cup winning team of Australia, and also in the 2006 and 2009 champions trophy winning teams.
“I’ve thought about it a lot. I’d probably be about 5,000 runs past Sachin Tendulkar, the leading run-scorer in the game. Most centuries, most wins, most Ashes wins, and the most World Cup wins, probably all those things. And then, unfortunately, I wake up in the morning and it’s just a dream. I would have loved an opportunity earlier, but the good thing for me was that when I got picked, I had a great understanding of my game,” said Hussey on The Grade Cricketer YouTube Channel.
The first-class career of the left-hand batter was outstanding with a score of nearly 23,000 runs at a mean of 52 and 61 centuries in 273 games. But it was the strength of the golden generation in 1990s and early 2000s in Australia that made him have to wait before making it into the national team.
Michael Hussey was renowned to be consistent and work under pressure but his later entry to the world did not enable him to achieve the overall figures which Sachin Tendulkar had. Tendulkar remains the all time Test and ODI run-scorer with 15,921 and 18,426 runs respectively. Hussey, in his turn, scored 6,235 in the Tests and 5,442 in ODIs, which is nowhere near the number of the Indian legend.
Interestingly, Hussey had overtaken Tendulkar in the T 20Is where he had scored 721 runs whereas Sachin had only appeared in a single match in the format. Overall, Hussey had accomplished 78 less centuries in international cricket than Tendulkar.
