India's Sachin Tendulkar (right) celebrates his century and victory for his country on the fifth day of the first Test against England in Chennai, India, yesterday. - AP

CHENNAI, India (AP)

Mumbai-born Sachin Tendulkar reached his 41st Test hundred yesterday with a swept boundary to guide India to a record-setting, six-wicket win over England that was given added poignancy in the wake of the deadly terror attacks that nearly derailed the series.

Tendulkar shared an unbroken 163-run, fifth-wicket partnership with Yuvraj Singh (85 not out) to guide India to 387 for four with 20 overs to spare on the last day.

"This hundred will give a certain amount of happiness to people but what has happened in Mumbai, it's very hard to recover from that," Tendulkar said.

"I would take this opportunity to thank everybody that stood up to this and made sure that the terrorists were actually captured ... Cricket is a lesser thing compared to what has happened."

Anxious moments

Tendulkar's composed innings contained nine boundaries from 196 deliveries. He moved from 99 to 103 with the boundary against off-spinner Graeme Swann, then leaped into the air and celebrated the victory with Yuvraj.

Returning to the Test squad after eight months, Yuvraj had some anxious moments against paceman Andrew Flintoff on a wicket where occasional deliveries kept low, but came out of his shell to pull left-arm spinner Monty Panesar for a towering six over mid-wicket.

Yuvraj's 131-ball knock featured eight other boundaries.

England had a 75-run first innings lead after scoring 316 and then dismissing India for 241, then held a commanding position when skipper Kevin Pietersen declared the second innings at 311 for nine on Sunday.

Only three teams in history had chased down targets bigger than the 387 that India needed to win the opening Test of a series that came close to being abandoned following last month's terror attacks in Mumbai that killed at least 171 people.

Losing 5-0

In the wake of the attacks, England flew back home after cancelling the last two matches of a limited-overs series it was already losing 5-0.

The English players and officials pondered long whether or not to travel back to India, and the series went ahead only after the Tests were moved to venues deemed acceptable to England's security team.

After such a tension-filled build up, the match evolved into a gripping contest in which master batsman Tendulkar applied the finishing flourishes.

"This is surely a very special victory. Scoring 387 is special on a track where the ball is bouncing and jumping," said Tendulkar.

"I think this is a very, very important hundred because to me the hundred becomes very special when the team win," he said. "At no stage we felt this target was beyond our reach. We expected runs to come if we were prepared to play our shots on this track."

"We sought to put the bad balls away. Yuvraj played one shot that rose sharply and went between midwicket and long-on. I told him to ensure that we stayed together till the end," Tendulkar said.

Very bitter pill

England captain Kevin Pietersen said his players were stunned.

"Can you write Sachin Tendulkar's script any better? We tried everything in our means, but he batted like a superstar," said Pietersen, saying the loss from a position of dominance was "a very, very bitter pill to swallow."

"Our boys tried our hearts out, the dressing room is not a happy place," he said. "We wanted to win and we thought we were in a pretty good position to do that, but unfortunately we got pipped."