Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar pronunciation
(Marathi: सिचन
तेंडुलकर; born 24 April
1973) is a current
Indian cricketer who was rated by
Wisden (2002) as the second greatest
Test batsman ever
after Sir Don Bradman.
Wisden also rated him as the greatest ever ODI batsman.
He made his international debut in
1989 and holds several batting records in both
Test Cricket and
ODI Cricket. A perennial crowd-favorite, he is the only Indian cricketer to
receive the
Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting honour for his performance
in 1997-1998.
Many commentators and fellow players regard him as one of the greatest batsmen
the game has seen.
Born to a middle class family of
Rajapur Saraswat Brahmins in Bombay,
now known as Mumbai. His father Ramesh
Tendulkar, a Marathi novelist named him after his favourite music director
Sachin Dev Burman. He was encouraged to play cricket by his elder brother,
Ajit Tendulkar. He has 2 more siblings - brother Nitin Tendulkar and sister
Savitai Tendulkar. Nitin's son Rohan Tendulkar born in 1990 is also a cricketer
and represents Mumbai in junior cricket tournaments.
In 1995, Sachin Tendulkar married
Anjali Tendulkar (born 13 feb 1971), the
paediatrician daughter of Gujarati industrialist Anand Mehta. They have two
children, Sara (born 12 October 1997) and Arjun (born 23 September, 2000).
Tendulkar sponsors 200
under-privileged children, every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based
NGO associated with his mother-in-law, Annaben Mehta. He is reluctant to
speak about this, or other charitable activities, choosing to preserve the
sanctity of his personal life despite the overwhelming media interest in him.
Career
Early
days of cricket
Vidyamandir School where he began his cricketing career under the guidance of
his coach and mentor
Ramakant Achrekar. During his early days as a schoolboy cricketer he went to
the MRF pace academy to train as a pace bowler but was sent back home. The man
who turned him back was legendary fast bowler Dennis Lillee who told the young
Tendulkar, 'Just focus on your batting'. This simple comment would result in the
birth of one of the greatest batsmen of all time.
While at school, he was involved in
unbroken 664-run
partnership in a Harris Shield game in 1988 with friend and team mate
Vinod Kambli, who also went on to represent India. The destructive pair
reduced one bowler to tears and made the rest of the opposition unwilling to
continue the game. Sachin scored over 320 in this innings and averaged over a
thousand in the tournament. At the time, this was the 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. When he was 14
Indian batting maestro Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his used ultra light
pads. "It was the greatest source of encouragement for me," he said nearly 20
years later after passing Gavaskar's top world record of 34 Test centuries.
Domestic
career
In 1988/1989, he scored 100 not-out
in his first
first-class match for
Bombay against
Gujarat. At 15 years and 232 days he is the youngest cricketer to score a
century on his first-class debut.
Sachin Tendulkar is the only player
to score a century while making his
Ranji Trophy, Duleep
Trophy and Irani Trophy
debut.
International career
Tendulkar is ambidextrous, batting,
bowling and throwing with his right hand, but preferring to write with his left
hand, practising left-hand throws at the nets on a regular basis. Tendulkar
played his first international match against
Pakistan in Karachi in 1989,
facing the likes of Wasim Akram,
Imran Khan,
Abdul Qadir and Waqar
Younis. He made just 15 runs, being bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made
his debut in that match. It was an inauspicious start, but Tendulkar followed it
up with his maiden Test
fifty a few days later at
Faisalabad. His
One-day International (ODI) debut on
December 18 was equally disappointing, where he was dismissed without
scoring a run, again by Waqar Younis. The series was followed by a tour of
New Zealand in which he fell for 88 in the Second Test.
John Wright, who later became the coach of India, took the catch that
prevented Tendulkar from becoming the youngest centurion in Test cricket. His
maiden Test century came in next tour, to
England in August 1990 at
Old Trafford. Tendulkar further enhanced his development into a world-class
batsman during the 1991-1992 tour of
Australia that included an unbeaten 148 in
Sydney (the first of many battles against
Shane Warne who made his debut in the match) and a brilliant century on the
fast and bouncy track at Perth. He has been
Man of the Match 11 times in Test matches and
Man of the Series twice, both times in the
Border-Gavaskar Trophy against
Australia.
Tendulkar's performance through the
years 1994-1999, coincided with his physical peak, at age 20 through 25.
Tendulkar was told to open the batting at
Auckland against New Zealand in 1994.
He went on to make 82 runs off 49 balls. His first ODI century came on
September 9, 1994 against Australia in
Sri Lanka at Colombo. It had
taken Tendulkar 79 ODIs to score a century.
Tendulkar's rise continued when he
was the leading run scorer at the
1996 Cricket World Cup, topping the batting averages whilst scoring two
centuries.
This was the beginning of a period
at the top of the batting world, culminating in the Australian tour of India in
early 1998, scoring three consecutive centuries. These were characterised by a
pre-meditated 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. Following the series
Australian spinner Shane Warne
ruefully joked that he was having nightmares about his Indian nemesis.
Indian Captain Mohd. Azharuddin was
going through a lean patch and India were playing against Pakistan in Sharjah
1997. Sachin and Navjot Siddhu hit 100's to set a record partnership for the
first wicket. Sachin returned back after getting out and found Azhar in two
minds to bat out. Sachin boosted Azhar to bat and Azhar unleashed 29 runs in
mere 10 balls. It enabled India post a score in excess of 300 runs for the first
time. India went on to win that match.
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. Worse was 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.
Tendulkar, succeeding
Mohammad Azharuddin as captain, then led India on a tour of Australia, where
the visitors were comprehensively beaten 3-0
by the newly-crowned world champions. After another Test series defeat, this
time by a 0-2 margin at home against South Africa, Tendulkar resigned, and
Sourav Ganguly took over as captain in 2000.
Tendulkar made 673 runs in 11
matches in the 2003 World Cup, helping India reach the final. While Australia
retained the trophy that it had won in 1999, Tendulkar was given the Man of the
Series award. The drawn series as India toured Australia in 2003-2004 saw
Tendulkar making his mark in the last Test of the series, with a double century
in Sydney,
which was also the last test appearance of one of cricket history's most
successful captain Steve Waugh.
Tennis elbow then took its toll on Tendulkar, leaving him out of the side
for the first two Tests when
Australia toured India in 2004. He played a part in the face-saving Indian
victory in Mumbai, though Australia had already taken the series 2-1, with the
Second Test in Chennai drawn.
Sachin is an integral part of
Think-Tank. He's often found discussing with the captain and involved in
building strategies. Current Captain, Rahul Dravid publicly acknowledged that it
was Sachin, who suggested to promote Irfan Pathan to #3. Pathan's swash buckling
batting did impress every one, but he was later removed from that position, as
his bowling started to be less effective and he would need to concentrate more
on his bowling.
On 10 December, 2005, at
Feroz Shah Kotla, he delighted fans with a record-breaking 35th Test
century, against the
Sri Lankans.
On
6 February 2006, Tendulkar scored his
39th ODI hundred, in a match against Pakistan. He followed with a run-a-ball 42
in the second ODI against Pakistan on February 11, 2006, and then a 95 in
hostile, seaming conditions on 13 February, 2006 in Lahore, which set up an
Indian victory.
On
19 March 2006, after scoring an
unconvincing 1 off 21 balls against
England in the first innings of the third Test in his home ground,
Wankhede, Tendulkar was booed off the ground by a section of the crowd,
the first time that he has ever faced such flak. While cheered on when he came
for his second innings, Tendulkar, was the top scorer in the second innings
and yet was to end the three-Test series without a single half-century to his
credit, and news of a shoulder operation raised more questions about his
longevity.
Tendulkar was operated upon for his
injured shoulder forcing him to skip the tour of
West Indies in 2006.
On
23 May 2006, after deciding not to
undergo a scheduled fitness test, he announced he would miss the tour of the
Caribbean for the Test series. However he agreed to play 5 games for
Lashings World XI in order to regain fitness for a possible August comeback.
He had scored 155, 147(retired), 98, 101(retired) & 105 in the 5 matches for
Lashings XI with strike rate of well above 100 and was the top scorer in all the
matches.
Also in his first Twenty20 match
with international opposition, although unofficial, Tendulkar hit 50 not out off
21 deliveries to blast the International XI to 123 after 10 overs against the
Pakistan XI.
However as of July,2006 The
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that the
longest-serving international cricketer has overcome his injury problem
following a rehabilitation programme and is available for selection.
He then came for the DLF cup in
Malaysia and became the only Indian batsman to shine. In his most recent
comeback match, against West Indies on 14th September 2006, Tendulkar responded
to his critics who believed that his career was inexorably sliding with his 40th
ODI century. Though he scored 141*, West Indies won the rain-affected match by
the D/L
method. In January 2007 Tendulkar scored a 76-ball century against the West
Indies which makes it his 41st ODI century. He reached a hundred on the last
ball of the Indian innings. Tendulkar now has 17 more ODI tons than
Sanath Jayasuriya who is second on the list of ODI century-makers.
Wisden named Tendulkar one of the
Cricketers of the Year in 1997, the first calendar year in which he scored
1,000 Test runs. He repeated the feat in 1999, 2001, and 2002. Tendulkar also
holds the record for scoring 1,000 ODI runs in a calendar year. He has done it
six times - 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003. In 1998 he made 1,894 ODI
runs, still the record for ODI runs by any batsman in any given calendar year.
At
Cricket World Cup 2007 in the
West Indies, Tendulkar and the
Indian cricket team had a dismal campaign. Tendulkar had scores of 7 (Bangladesh),
57* (Bermuda)
and 0 (Sri
Lanka). As a result, former
Australian captain Ian
Chappell, brother of current Indian coach
Greg, called for Tendulkar to retire in his column for Mumbai's Mid Day
newspaper