Sachin Tendulkar has proved that one-day cricket is not dead.

On Thursday, he took India breathtakingly close to what would have been their biggest ever win in one-day international (ODI) history.

His 175 off 141 balls under lights, a nerveless masterclass on the day he got to 17,000 runs, was record-breaking, but that statistic was just a number.

What was far more important was the way he anchored India in their biggest ever chase.

Tendulkar was master-blaster and mentor by turn, as he scolded, indulged, soothed and egged Suresh Raina to stay on with him after the others had failed.

“In the end, it was disappointing,” he said later, but the result, India lost by three runs, did not matter.

We now know that those who consigned ODIs to the realm of history were wrong.