God of cricket Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar

Full name Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar

Born 24 April 1973 (age 47) [1]

Bombay (now Mumbai),

Maharashtra , India

Nickname Little Master, [1] Master Blaster

Height 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in)

Batting Right-handed

Bowling Right-arm medium, leg break , off break

Role Batsman

International information

National side India (1989–2013)

Test debut (cap 187 ) 15 November 1989 v Pakistan

Last Test 14 November 2013 v West Indies

ODI debut (cap 74 ) 18 December 1989 v Pakistan

Last ODI 18 March 2012 v Pakistan

ODI shirt no. 10

Only T20I (cap 11 ) 1 December 2006 v South Africa

Competition Test ODI

Matches 200 463

Runs scored 15,921 18,426

Batting average 53.78 44.83

100s/50s 51/68 49/96

Top score 248 * 200 *

Balls bowled 4,240 8,054

Wickets 46 154

Bowling average 54.17 44.48

5 wickets 0 2

Best bowling 3/10 5/32

Catches/ stumpings 115/– 140/–

Tendulkar took up cricket at the age of eleven, made his Test debut on 15 November 1989 against Pakistan in Karachi at the age of sixteen, and went on to represent Mumbai domestically and India internationally for close to twenty-four years. In 2002, halfway through his career, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Don Bradman, and the second greatest ODI batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards .[8] Later in his career, Tendulkar was a part of the Indian team that won the 2011 World Cup , his first win in six World Cup appearances for India.[9] He had previously been named "Player of the Tournament" at the

2003 edition of the tournament , held in South Africa. In 2013, he was the only Indian cricketer included in an all-time Test World XI named to mark the 150th anniversary of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. [10][11][12] He is colloquially known as Little Master or Master Blaster. [13][14][15][16]

Tendulkar received the Arjuna Award in 1994 for his outstanding sporting achievement, the

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 1997, India's highest sporting honour, and the Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan awards in 1999 and 2008, respectively, India's fourth and second highest civilian awards. [17] After a few hours of his final match on 16 November 2013, the

Prime Minister's Office announced the decision to award him the Bharat Ratna , India's highest civilian award. [18][19] He is the youngest recipient to date and the first ever sportsperson to receive the award. [20][21] He also won the 2010 Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year at the ICC awards. [22] In 2012, Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. [23] He was also the first sportsperson and the first person without an aviation background to be awarded the honorary rank of group captain by the Indian Air Force .[24] In 2012, he was named an Honorary Member of the Order of Australia .[25][26]

In 2010, Time magazine included Sachin in its annual Time 100 list as one of the "Most Influential People in the World". [27] In December 2012, Tendulkar announced his retirement from ODIs. [28] He retired from Twenty20 cricket in October 2013 [29] and subsequently retired from all forms of cricket on 16 November 2013 after playing his 200th Test match , against the West Indies in Mumbai's

Wankhede Stadium .[30] Tendulkar played 664 international cricket matches in total, scoring 34,357 runs. [7]

In 2019, Tendulkar was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. [31]

Early years

Tendulkar was born at Nirmal Nursing Home in

Dadar , Bombay on 24 April 1973 to a Maharashtrian family.

His father,

Ramesh Tendulkar , was a well-known Marathi novelist & poet and his mother, Rajni, worked in the insurance industry. Ramesh named Tendulkar after his favourite music director,

Sachin Dev Burman. Tendulkar has three elder siblings: two half-brothers Nitin and Ajit, and a half-sister Savita. They were Ramesh's children by his first wife, who died after the birth of her third child.

Tendulkar spent his formative years in the

Sahitya Sahawas Cooperative Housing Society in

Bandra (East) . As a young boy, Tendulkar was considered a bully, and often picked up fights with new children in his school. [40] He also showed an interest in tennis, idolising John McEnroe .[41] To help curb his mischievous and bullying tendencies, Ajit introduced the young Sachin to cricket in 1984. He introduced him to

Ramakant Achrekar , a famous cricket coach and a club cricketer of repute, at Shivaji Park , Dadar. In the first meeting, the young Sachin did not play his best. Ajit told Achrekar that he was feeling self-conscious due to the coach observing him, and was not displaying his natural game. Ajit requested the coach to give him another chance at playing, but watch while hiding behind a tree. This time, Sachin, apparently unobserved, played much better and was accepted at Achrekar's academy. [42]

Achrekar was impressed with Tendulkar's talent and advised him to shift his schooling to Sharadashram Vidyamandir (English) High School, [1] a school at Dadar which had a dominant cricket team and had produced many notable cricketers. Prior to this, Tendulkar had attended the Indian Education Society's New English School in Bandra (East). [43] He was also coached under the guidance of Achrekar at Shivaji Park in the mornings and evenings. [44] Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one- rupee coin on the top of the

stumps , and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. If Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Tendulkar now considers the 13 coins he won then as some of his most prized possessions. [45] He moved in with his aunt and uncle, who lived near Shivaji Park, during this period, due to his hectic schedule. [43]

Sachin Tendulkar and his wife Anjali

Meanwhile, at school, he developed a reputation as a child prodigy. He had become a common conversation point in local cricketing circles, where there were suggestions already that he would become one of the greats. Sachin consistently featured in the school team in the Matunga Gujarati Seva Mandal (MGSM) Shield. [46] Besides school cricket, he also played club cricket, initially representing John Bright Cricket Club in Bombay's premier club cricket tournament, the Kanga League, [43] and later went on to play for the Cricket Club of India. [47] In 1987, at the age of 14, he attended the MRF Pace Foundation in Madras (now

Chennai ) to train as a fast bowler , but Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee , who took a world record 355 Test wickets, was unimpressed, suggesting that Tendulkar focus on his batting instead. [48] On 20 January 1987, he also turned out as substitute for Imran Khan's side in an exhibition game at Brabourne Stadium in Bombay, to mark the golden jubilee of Cricket Club of India.[49] A couple of months later, former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads and consoled him to not get disheartened for not getting the Bombay Cricket Association's "Best junior cricket award" (He was 14 years that time). "It was the greatest source of encouragement for me," Tendulkar said nearly 20 years later after surpassing Gavaskar's world record of 34 Test centuries. [50][51] Sachin served as a ball boy in the 1987 Cricket World Cup when India played against England in the semifinal in Bombay. [52][53] In his season in 1988, Tendulkar scored a century in every innings he played. He was involved in an unbroken 664-run partnership in a Lord Harris Shield inter-school game against St. Xavier's High School in 1988 with his friend and teammate Vinod Kambli , who would also go on to represent India. The destructive pair reduced one bowler to tears and made the rest of the opposition unwilling to continue the game. Tendulkar scored 326 (not out) in this innings and scored over a thousand runs in the tournament. [54] This was a record partnership in any form of cricket until 2006, when it was broken by two under-13 batsmen in a match held at Hyderabad in India.[55]

Early domestic career

On 14 November 1987, the 14-year-old Tendulkar was selected to represent Bombay in the Ranji Trophy , India's premier domestic First-class cricket tournament, for the 1987–88 season. However, he was not selected for the final eleven in any of the matches, though he was often used as a substitute fielder. [43] He narrowly missed out on playing alongside his idol Gavaskar, who had retired from all forms of cricket after the 1987 Cricket World Cup. [43] A year later, on 11 December 1988, aged 15 years and 232 days, Tendulkar made his debut for Bombay against Gujarat at home and scored 100 not out in that match, making him the youngest Indian to score a century on debut in first-class cricket.[56] He was handpicked to play for the team by the then Bombay captain

Dilip Vengsarkar after watching him easily negotiating India's best fast bowler at the time,

Kapil Dev , in the Wankhede Stadium nets, [1] where the Indian team had come to play against the touring New Zealand team . He followed this by scoring a century in his first

Deodhar and Duleep Trophies, which are also Indian domestic tournaments. [57]

Tendulkar finished the 1988–89 Ranji Trophy season as Bombay's highest run-scorer. He scored 583 runs at an average of 67.77, and was the eighth highest run-scorer overall. [58] He also made an unbeaten century in the Irani Trophy match against Delhi at the start of the 1989–90 season, playing for the Rest of India. [59] Sachin was picked for a young Indian team to tour England twice, under the Star Cricket Club banner in 1988 and 1989. [60] In the famous 1990–91 Ranji Trophy final, in which Haryana defeated Bombay by two runs after leading in the first innings, Tendulkar's 96 from 75 deliveries was a key to giving Bombay a chance of victory as it attempted to chase 355 from only 70 overs on the final day. [61]

His first double century (204*) was for Mumbai while playing against the visiting Australian team at the Brabourne Stadium in 1998. [1][62] He is the only player to score a century on debut in all three of his domestic first-class tournaments (the Ranji, Irani, and Duleep Trophies). [63] Another double century was an innings of 233* against Tamil Nadu in the semi-finals of the 2000 Ranji Trophy , which he regards as one of the best innings of his career.