Sachin Tendulkar

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Sachin Tendulkar

Personal information Full name Born Nickname Height Batting style Bowling style Role Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar 24 April 1973 (age 39) Bombay (now Mumbai), Maharashtra , India Tendlya, Little Master,[1] God of Cricket [2] 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) Right-handed Right-arm leg spin, off spin, medium pace Batsman International information National side Test debut (cap 187) Last Test ODI debut (cap 74) Last ODI India 15 November 1989 v Pakistan 5 December 2012 v England 18 December 1989 v Pakistan 18 March 2012 v Pakistan

ODI shirt no. Only T20I

10 1 December 2006 v South Africa Domestic team information Team Cricket Club of India Mumbai Yorkshire Mumbai Indians Career statistics

Years 1988 1988present 1992 2008present

Competition Matches Runs scored Batting average 100s/50s Top score Balls bowled Wickets Bowling average 5 wickets in innings 10 wickets in match Best bowling Catches/stumpings

Test 194 15,645 54.32 51/66 248* 4,174 45 54.64 0 0 3/10 114/

ODI 463 18,426 44.83 49/96 200* 8,032 154 44.32 2 n/a 5/32 140/ 297

FC 551

LA

24,678 58.48 79/112 248* 7,551 70 62.15 0 0 3/10 184/

21,999 45.54 60/114 200* 10,230 201 42.17 2 n/a 5/32 175/

Source: Cricinfo, 14 December 2012

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, AM (English pronunciation: /stn tndulkr/ ( listen); born 24 April 1973)[1] is an Indian cricketer widely acknowledged as the greatest living batsman, and second only to Don Bradman in the all time greatest list in Test cricket.[3] In One Day Internationals (ODIs), statistics confirm that Sachin is by far the most successful batsman. In 2002, The Wisden ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Bradman, and the second greatest one-day-international (ODI) batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards.[4] Tendulkar was a part of the 2011 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team in the later part of his career, his first such win in six World Cup appearances for India.[5] He was also the recipient of "Player of the Tournament" award of the 2003 Cricket World Cup held in South Africa.

Tendulkar won the 2010 Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year at the ICC awards.[6] He has been recommended for the receipt of the Bharat Ratna award, in fact it has been speculated that the criteria for the award of the Bharat Ratna was changed to allow him receive the award.[7][8] He is also a member of Rajya Sabha of Parliament of India.[9] Tendulkar passed 30,000 runs in international cricket on 20 November 2009. On 5 December 2012, Tendulkar became first batsman in history to cross the 34,000 run aggregate in all formats of the game put together.[10][11][12] At 36 years and 306 days, he became the first ever player to score a double-century in the history of ODIs. Two years later he became the first player to score 100 international centuries. As of December 2012, Tendulkar has played 657 matches in international cricket.[13] Tendulkar has been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award, India's second highest civilian award, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honour. He was also the first sportsperson and the first one without aviation background to be awarded the honorary rank of Group Captain by the Indian Air Force. Tendulkar has received honorary doctorates from University of Mysore and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences.[14][15] Sachin holds the 18th rank in ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen as of 4 December 2012.[16] On 1 August 2012, Sachin Tendulkar was nominated for the ICC People's Choice award for the third time.[17] In 2012, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. Sachin Tendulkar was conferred with the membership in the Order of Australia (AM) in Mumbai on 6 November 2012. Simon Crean, minister in the Australian cabinet, presented the award to Tendulkar.[18] Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister, was on an official visit to New Delhi in October and had announced Tendulkar's name as the latest recipient of the award. On 23 December 2012, Tendulkar announced his retirement from ODIs. [19][20] [21] [22] Tendulkar has already stated that he will not be playing T20 Internationals [23]

Contents

1 Early years and personal life o 1.1 Beliefs 2 Early domestic career 3 International career o 3.1 Early career o 3.2 Rise through the ranks o 3.3 Captaincy o 3.4 Injuries and apparent decline o 3.5 Return to old form and consistency o 3.6 2007/08 tour of Australia o 3.7 Home series against South Africa o 3.8 Sri Lanka Series o 3.9 Return to form and breaking the record o 3.10 ODI and Test Series against England o 3.11 20092010 o 3.12 2011 World Cup and after 3.12.1 100th international century

3.12.2 Return To Ranji Trophy and retirement from ODIs 4 Indian Premier League and Champions League 5 Style of play 6 Controversies o 6.1 Mike Denness incident o 6.2 Ferrari import tax 7 Fan following 8 Business interests o 8.1 Commercial endorsements 9 Political career 10 Career achievements o 10.1 Individual honours and appreciations 10.1.1 National honours 10.1.2 Other honours 11 Philanthropy 12 Biographies 13 See also 14 Further reading 15 Notes 16 References 17 External links

Early years and personal life

Tendulkar was born on 24 April 1973 into a Rajapur Saraswat Brahmin family in Bombay (now Mumbai).[24][25][26] His father Ramesh Tendulkar was a reputed Marathi novelist and his mother Rajni worked in the insurance industry.[27] 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 from his first marriage.[28] He spent his formative years in the Sahitya Sahawas Cooperative Housing Society, Bandra (East), Bombay. As a young boy, Tendulkar was considered a bully, and often picked up fights with new children in his school.[29] He also showed an interest in tennis, idolising John McEnroe.[30] To help curb his mischievous and bullying tendencies, Ajit introduced him to cricket in 1984. He introduced the young Sachin to Ramakant Achrekar, a famous cricket coach of Bombay and a club cricketer of repute, at Shivaji Park, Dadar, Bombay. 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.[31] Prior to this, Tendulkar had attended the Indian Education Society's New English School in Bandra (East).[31] He was also coached under the guidance of Achrekar at Shivaji Park in the mornings and evenings.[32] Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a onerupee 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.[33] He moved in with his aunt and uncle, who lived near Shivaji Park, during this period, due to his hectic schedule.[31] Meanwhile at school, he developed a reputation as a child prodigy. He had become a common conversation point in Mumbai cricketing circles, where there were suggestions already that he would become one of the greats. Besides school cricket, he also played club cricket, initially representing John Bright Cricket Club in Bombay's premier club cricket tournament, the Kanga League,[31] and later went on to play for the Cricket Club of India.[34] 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.[35] A couple of months later, former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads. "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.[36] His season in 1988 was extraordinary, with Tendulkar scoring 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 Anjuman-E-Islam High School in 1988 with his friend and team-mate 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.[37] 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. On 24 May 1995,[38] at the age of 22, Tendulkar married Anjali, a paediatrician and daughter of Gujarati industrialist Anand Mehta and British social worker Annabel Mehta. Anjali is six years his senior.[39] They have two children, Sara (born 12 October 1997) and Arjun (born 24 September 1999). Arjun, a left handed batsman, has recently been included in under-14 probables list of Mumbai Cricket Association for off-season training camp.[40][relevant? discuss]

Beliefs
Tendulkar is known to be a religious person,[41] and an ardent devotee of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi.[42][43][44] He has visited Puttaparthi on several occasions to seek Baba's blessings.[42][45] In 1997, Tendulkar captained the Indian National side, playing against a World Eleven team, in the Unity Cup which was held at the hill view stadium in Puttaparthi, in Baba's presence.[46][47] After Sai Baba's death, Tendulkar broke into tears when he saw the body of Baba in Puttaparthi, and cancelled his birthday celebrations.[48][49][50] The cricketer is also known to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi at home and frequently visits temples during night when it is calm and quiet.[41][51] The cricketer has also offered his prayers at several other Hindu temples across the country.[52][53]

Early domestic career

On 14 November 1987, Tendulkar was selected to represent Bombay in the Ranji Trophy, India's premier domestic first-class cricket tournament, for the 198788 season. However, he was not selected for the final eleven in any of the matches.[31] A year later, on 11 December 1988, aged just 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 firstclass debut. He was handpicked to play for the team by the then Mumbai 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.[54] Tendulkar finished the 198889 season as Bombay's highest run-scorer.[note 1][55] He also made an unbeaten century in the Irani Trophy match against Delhi at the start of the 198990 season, playing for the Rest of India.[56] In 1992, at the age of 19, Tendulkar became the first overseas-born player to represent Yorkshire, which prior to Tendulkar joining the team, never selected players even from other English counties.[1][note 2] Selected for Yorkshire as a replacement for the injured Australian fast bowler Craig McDermott, Tendulkar played 16 first-class matches for the county and scored 1070 runs at an average of 46.52.[57] His first double century was for Mumbai while playing against the visiting Australian team at the Brabourne Stadium in 1998.[1] He is the only player to score a century in all three of his domestic first-class debuts.[58]

International career
Early career
Raj Singh Dungarpur is credited for the selection of Tendulkar for the Indian tour of Pakistan in late 1989,[59] and that also after just one first class season.[60] The Indian selection committee had shown interest in selecting Tendulkar for the tour of the West Indies held earlier that year, but eventually did not select him, as they did not want him to be exposed to the dominant fast bowlers of the West Indies so early in his career. Tendulkar made his Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi in November 1989 aged just 16 years and 223 days. He made just 15 runs, being bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made his debut in that match, but was noted for how he handled numerous blows to his body at the hands of the Pakistani pace attack.[61] In the fourth and final test in Sialkot, he was hit on the nose by a bouncer bowled by Imran Khan, but he declined medical assistance and continued to bat even as he gushed blood from it.[62] In a 20 over exhibition game in Peshawar, held in parallel with the bilateral series, Tendulkar made 53 runs off 18 balls, including an over in which he scored 27 runs off leg-spinner Abdul Qadir.[note 3] This was later called "one of the best innings I have seen" by the then Indian captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth.[63] In all, he scored 215 runs at an average of 35.83 in the Test series, and was dismissed without scoring a run in the only One Day International (ODI) he played.[64][65] The series was followed by a tour of New Zealand in which he scored 117 runs at an average of 29.25 in, Tests including an innings of 88 in the Second Test.[66] He was dismissed without scoring in one of the two one-day games he played, and scored 36 in the other.[67] On his next tour, to England in July/August 1990, he became the second youngest cricketer to score a Test

century as he made 119 not out at Old Trafford in Manchester.[62] Wisden described his innings as "a disciplined display of immense maturity" and also wrote:[68] "He looked the embodiment of India's famous opener, Gavaskar, and indeed was wearing a pair of his pads. While he displayed a full repertoire of strokes in compiling his maiden Test hundred, most remarkable were his off-side shots from the back foot. Though only 5ft 5in tall, he was still able to control without difficulty short deliveries from the English pacemen." Tendulkar further enhanced his development during the 19911992 tour of Australia held before the 1992 Cricket World Cup, that included an unbeaten 148 in Sydney and 114 on a fast, bouncing pitch at Perth against a world-class pace attack comprising Merv Hughes, Bruce Reid and Craig McDermott. Hughes commented to Allan Border at the time that "This little prick's going to get more runs than you, AB."[69]

Rise through the ranks

Tendulkar's performance through the years 19941999 coincided with his physical peak, in his early twenties. On the day of the Hindu festival Holi, Tendulkar was told to open the batting at Auckland against New Zealand in 1994.[70] He went on to make 82 runs off 49 balls. He scored his first ODI century on 9 September 1994 against Australia in Sri Lanka at Colombo. It had taken him 79 ODIs to score a century.

Tendulkar waits at the bowler's end. Tendulkar's rise continued when he was the leading run scorer at the 1996 World Cup, scoring two centuries.[71] He was the only Indian batsman to perform in the infamous semi-final against Sri Lanka. Tendulkar fell amid a batting collapse and the match referee, Clive Lloyd awarded Sri Lanka the match after the crowd began rioting and throwing litter onto the field. After the World Cup, in the same year against Pakistan at Sharjah, Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin was going through a lean patch. Tendulkar and Navjot Singh Sidhu both made centuries to set a then record partnership for the second wicket. After getting out, Tendulkar found Azharuddin in two minds about whether he should bat. Tendulkar convinced Azharuddin to bat and Azharuddin subsequently unleashed 29 runs in a mere 10 balls. It enabled India post a score in excess of 300 runs for the first time in an ODI. India went on to win that match.

This was the beginning of a period at the top of the batting world, culminating in the Australian tour of India in early 1998, with Tendulkar scoring three consecutive centuries. These were characterised by a premeditated plan to target Australian spinners Shane Warne and Gavin Robertson, to whom he regularly charged down the pitch to drive over the infield. This technique worked as India beat Australia. The test match success was followed by two scintillating knocks in a tournament in Sharjah where he scored two consecutive centuries in a must-win game and then in finals against Australia tormenting Shane Warne once again. Following the series Warne ruefully joked that he was having nightmares about his Indian nemesis.[72] He also had a role with the ball in that series, including a five wicket haul in an ODI. Set 310 runs to win, Australia were cruising comfortably at 203 for 3 in the 31st over when Tendulkar turned the match for India taking wickets of Michael Bevan, Steve Waugh, Darren Lehmann, Tom Moody and Damien Martyn for just 32 runs in 10 overs.[73] Tendulkar single-handedly won the ICC 1998 quarterfinal at Dhaka to pave way for India's entry into the semifinals, when he took four Australian wickets after scoring 141 runs in just 128 balls. The inaugural Asian Test Championship took place in February and March 1999. Held just twice, the 1999 championship was contested by India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.[74] Eden Gardens hosted the first match, in which Tendulkar was run out for nine after colliding with Pakistan bowler Shoaib Akhtar. The crowd's reaction to the dismissal was to throw objects at Akhtar, and the players were taken off the field. The match resumed after Tendulkar and the president of the ICC appealed to the crowd, however further rioting meant that the match was finished in front of a crowd of just 200 people.[75] Tendulkar scored his 19th Test century in the second Test and the match resulted in a draw with Sri Lanka.[76] India did not progress to the final, which was won by Pakistan, and refused to participate the next time the championship was held to increasing political tensions between India and Pakistan.[77] A chronic back problem flared up when Pakistan toured India in 1999, with India losing the historic Test at Chepauk despite a gritty century from Tendulkar himself. The worst was yet to come as Professor Ramesh Tendulkar, Tendulkar's father, died in the middle of the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Tendulkar flew back to India to attend the final rituals of his father, missing the match against Zimbabwe. However, he returned with a bang to the World cup scoring a century (unbeaten 140 off 101 balls) in his very next match against Kenya in Bristol. He dedicated this century to his father.[78]

Captaincy
Tendulkar's record as captain Matches Won Lost Drawn Tied Test[79] 25 ODI[80] 73 4 23 9 43 12 0 2 No result 6

Tendulkar's two tenures as captain of the Indian cricket team were not very successful. When Tendulkar took over as captain in 1996, it was with huge hopes and expectations. However, by 1997 the team was performing poorly. Azharuddin was credited with saying "Nahin jeetega!

Chote ki naseeb main jeet nahin hai!",[81] which translates into: "He won't win! It's not in the small one's destiny!".[82] Tendulkar, succeeding Azharuddin as captain for his second term, then led India on a tour of Australia, where the visitors were comprehensively beaten 30 by the newly crowned world champions.[83] Tendulkar, however, won the player of the tournament award as