Embellished with Tendulkar's milestone knock of 114 runs, his 49th ODI century, India scored 289 for five but the hosts pulled off a stunning win with four balls to spare to send thousands of their fans into a frenzy at the Sher-e-Bangla national stadium. The heroes of Bangladeshi win were opener Tamim Iqbal (70) Jahurul Islam (53) and Shakib Al Hasan (49) as they batted with sheer grit to pull the rug from under India's feet.
Bangaldesh skipper Mushfikur Rahim hit a fiery 46 off 25 balls and Nasir Hossain supported him well with 54-run knock to record a shock win, their first against India since 2003 World Cup.
The hosts needed 37 off the last four overs but the match tilted in Bangaldesh's favour when Irfan Pathan leaked 17 runs in the 48th over. Skipper Rahim hit two consecutive sixes in that over and then treated Praveen Kumar with the same disdain to script a historic win.
For India, apart from Tendulkar's knock, Virat Kohli (66) and Suresh Raina (51) were the notable contributors for India.
India will now have to win their last league match against arch rivals Pakistan to entertain hopes of making it to the final.
It had been a long and agonising wait for Tendulkar to get to this century as pressure was piling on him to achieve the landmark ever since the disappointing England tour last year.
As the second innings of the match progressed, and it was clear that India was losing, cricket fans and critics began commenting on how everytime Sachin Tendulkar scores a century, India loses the match.
But these statistics, should prove otherwise: In ODI cricket, Sachin Tendulkar has scored 49 ODI centuries, India has lost just 13 of these matches. In Test, Tendulkar has scored 51, the team has lost only 11 times.
Tendulkar, who turns 39 next month, achieved the feat when he recorded his 49th one-day century in the Asia Cup match against Bangladesh at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium in Dhaka. He has 51 Test hundreds.
The Mumbai batsman, who has compiled more Test and one-day runs than anyone in history, reached the record with a single, marking the moment with a modest glance to the sky while pointing to the Indian flag on his helmet.
Tendulkar is the most capped player in the history of the game with 188 Test and 462 one-day appearances since making his debut against Pakistan in Karachi in November, 1989.
Millions of fans in India and across the cricketing world endured an anxious year-long wait before Tendulkar finally reached the landmark in the four-nation tournament, the symbol of one-day supremacy in the continent.
After 33 innings and over a year, Tendulkar finally got to the elusive ton. It took him 138 deliveries, one of the most arduos one-day efforts by the 38-year-old right-hander, to get to the 100 that had become as much a talking point as the team's fortunes in the past 365 days.
Tendulkar clipped it down to square leg and jogged the single, gave a long hard stare to his bat after taking off his helmet before looking heavenward in his signature style. What was missing was emotion.
The diminutive batsman, the most successful batsman in internationla cricket right now, kept it subdued. He shook hands with Suresh Raina, his partner at the other end, and raised his bat to acknowledge the cheering fans with a straight face giving little insight into what was going on his mind amid the drama.
But the teammates in the dressing room were as expressive as they could be as they all got up from their seats to applaud the veteran as he added another feather to an already overcrowded cap.
However, reaching the milestone was no easy task for the player who often makes batting look effortless.
After getting what several former cricketers called a monkey off his back, Tendulkar was dismissed by Mashrafe Mortaza off the second last delivery of the 47th over. The 114-run knock was incidentally Tendulkar's maiden century against Bangladesh.
Upon his dismissal, the Bangladeshi players expectedly gave him a round of applause as he walked back to pavillion with fans cheering him on. His Indian teammates and coach Duncan Fletcher received him at the boundary lauding the iconic player.
But what would be remembered is the wait that Tendulkar endured to get to the milestone. It all began with the 99th ton that he got against South Africa in a World Cup match on March 12 last year.
For a man, who is considered nothing less than god of cricket in India, getting to 100th was considered nothing more than a stroll in the park.
He decided to skip the tour of West Indies that followed and the subsequent trip to England proved a disaster not just for him but for the entire team as it failed to notch a single win in any format of the game.
He got close to scoring the hundred a few times in the home Test series against the West Indies but missed out. The action shifted to Australia after that and though he seemed to be in good form, the Aussies kept their promise of not letting him the reach the milestone against them at least.
He was eventually selected for the ODI tri-series, his first one-day assignment after the World Cup, but once again the hundred eluded him.
Tendulkar then made himself available for the Asia Cup and as destiny would have it, the elusive ton came in the familiar sub-continental environs.
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