April 24, 2024, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar turn 51 years old.
From making Test debut at the age of 16 to lifting the World Cup in front of his home crowd at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar’s career has been nothing less than a fairytale. The Master Blaster made his Test debut against Pakistan in November 1989. A month later, Tendulkar donned Team India jersey in ODIs for the first time against the same opponents.
1.
Sachin's father, Ramesh Tendulkar, was a professor of Marathi
language and literature in Mumbai, and also a Marathi poet.
2. Ramesh Tendulkar named his son after his favourite music director, Sachin Dev Burman.
3. Sachin attended Sharadashram Vidyamandir where he was coached by the legendary Ramakant Achrekar whose other wards included Balwinder Sandhu,Vinod Kambli, Ajit Agarkar, Praveen Amre, Paras Mhambrey, Chandrakant Pandit and Sameer Dighe.
4.
Achrekar took his pupils through their paces at Shivaji Park in
Dadar. Sachin revealed that a 'late cut' (slap) from Achrekar for skipping a
match changed his life by making him practice harder and put in more hours into
his game.
5.
During his school days Sachin visited the MRF Pace Foundation in
Chennai to train as a fast bowler. It did not take long for Dennis Lillee to
advise him that he would be better off focusing on his batting.
6. At the age of 14, Sachin was a ball boy for the match between India and Zimbabwe at the Wankhede Stadium during the 1987 World Cup.
7.
Sachin fielded for Pakistan as a substitute in an exhibition match
between Pakistan XI and Cricket Club of India Golden Jubilee XI at the
Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in 1987-88.
8.
In the semi-finals of the Harris Shield in 1988, Sachin was
involved in an unbroken 664-run partnership with friend and team mate Vinod
Kambli against St Xavier's High School at Azad Maidan. Sachin made 326 not out while
Kambli made 349 not out.
9.
Sachin went on to make another triple hundred - 346 - in the
final. He averaged over a thousand runs in the tournament that year!
10.
On 11 December 1988, aged 15 years and 232 days, Sachin scored 100
notout for Bombay against Gujarat, making him the youngest Indian to score
acentury on first-class debut. He is the only player to score centuries on
debut in the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy.
11.
Sachin played his first Test match against Pakistan in Karachi in
1989
aged just 16 - he is the fifth youngest player in Test history. He made 15 runsbefore
being bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made his debut in that match. In all, he
scored 215 runs at an average of 35.83 in the Test series.
12.
In the final Test in Sialkot, he was hit on the nose by a Waqar
bouncer, but declined medical assistance and continued to bat even as blood
gushed from the wound.
13.
In an exhibition game in Peshawar during that tour, Sachin
made 53 runs off18 balls, including an over in which he scored 28 runs off
Abdul Qadir, hitting him for 6, 4, 0, 6, 6 & 6.
14.
Sachin was dismissed without scoring a run in the first two
One Day Internationals he played - the first in Pakistan and the second in New
Zealand.
15.
When he was 14, 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 later said. When he became the second youngest
cricketer - at 17years and 107 days - to score a Test century with an unbeaten
119 against England at Old Trafford in 1990, he was wearing Gavaskar's pads.
16.
When Sachin made his legendary 114 in Perth in the 1991-92 series,
Merv Hughes had the foresight to tell Allan Border, 'This little prick's going
to get more runs than you, AB.
17.
Sachin played a solitary season of county cricket in 1992 when he
became Yorkshire's first ever overseas player. In 16 first class matches for
the county, he made 1070 runs at an average of 46.52 with one century. He's
also played club cricket in England for Lashings.
18. Sachin holds the record for the most Test centuries as a teenager - five.
19. Sachin was the first batsman to be given out by the third umpire after being run out by Jonty Rhodes in a Test against South Africa at Durban during the1992-93 series.\
20. In the 1993 Hero Cup final, South Africa needed just six runs from the final over of the match. Sachin was handed the ball by skipper Mohd Azharuddinand conceded just three runs as India romped home.
21.
On the day of the Holi festival in 1994, Sachin was told to open
the batting against New Zealand at Auckland. It was a career-defining moment.
He went on to make a colourful 82 runs off 49 balls.
22.
He scored his first ODI century in September 1994 against
Australia in Sri Lanka at Colombo. It had taken him 79 ODIs to reach three
figures and open the flood gates.
23.
In 1995, Sachin married Anjali, a pediatrician and daughter of
Gujarat industrialist Anand Mehta and British social worker Annabel Mehta.
24.
He was chosen as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in
1997.
25.
After losing the Chennai Test to India in 1997, Australian captain
Mark Taylorsaid, 'We did not lose to a team called India. We lost to a man
called Sachin
26.
He was the first cricketer to win the Rajiv
Gandhi Khel Ratna - for the year 1997-98. MS Dhoni would emulate him by winning
the award ten years later.
27.
During the Australian tour of India in 1998,
Matthew Hayden said 'I have seen God. He
bats at no. 4 in India in Tests.
28.
1998 was truly Sachin's annus mirabilis. He
scored the most ODI runs by any batsman in a calendar year - 1,894 - and for
good measure the most ODI centuries by any batsman in a calendar
year - 9. In 34 ODIs during the year he had a strike rate of
over 100 - 102.15 to be precise.
29.
The successive centuries in Sharjah in 1998 when
he tore apart an Aussie attack that included a demoralised Shane Warne are part
of Indian cricket folklore. Warne was so shell-shocked that he admitted he
would go to bed with nightmares of Sachin hitting him for a six.
30.
Sachin's fastest international century came off
just 71 balls in an ODI against Zimbabwe at Sharjah in 1998. He finished on an
unbeaten 124 which included12 fours and 6 sixes. India won the game by 10
wickets with fellow opener Sourav Ganguly remaining unbeaten on 63.
31.
Sachin has opened the innings only once in Tests
against New Zealand in Ahmedabad in 1999 when he was captain. India was seeking
quick runs in the second innings before a declaration. He was bowled by Chris
Cairns for 15.
32.
Sachin and Rahul Dravid hold the world record
for the highest partnership in ODI matches when they scored 331 runs against
New Zealand in 1999 (Sachin186 , Dravid 153). In the course of that knock,
Sachin smashed 24 runs off an over by Chris Drum.
33.
Sachin has rated Mumbai's victory over Tamil
Nadu in the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai in
the 1999-2000 season ashis most memorable moment in the tournament. Sachin made
his highest score in the Ranji Trophy – an unbeaten 233 off just 234 balls - to
help Mumbai gain the vital first innings lead in the company of the No.11
batsman.
34.
According to Sachin, he has only sledged once.
The victim was Glenn McGrath during the quarter final of the ICC knockout
tournament in Kenya in 2000. “The first thing I said was ‘Today I will hit you
out of the ground’. He got really angry and sprayed the ball around. This was
exactly what we wanted.” India won by 20 runs.
35.
Sachin was given a suspended ban of one game by
match referee MikeDenness for alleged ball tampering in South Africa in 2001
after television cameras picked up images that suggested Tendulkar may have
been involved in cleaning the seam of the cricket ball.
36.
Although Sachin failed with the bat in the
legendary Kolkata Test against Australia in 2001, he was an able foil to
Harbhajan Singh with the ball, grabbing 3/31 in the second innings. His three
victims - Hayden, Gilchrist and Warne - were all lbw.
37.
Sachin was gifted a Ferrari 360 Modena by
Michael Schumacher on behalf of Fiat in 2002 after passing Bradman's tally of
29 Test centuries. The government's decision to waive duty on the car attracted
flak. Sachin went onto sell the car to a businessman from Surat in 2011.
38.
Sachin has made 14 ducks in Tests and 20 in
ODIs. In the 2002 Test series in the West Indies, after making 79 and 117 in
the first two Tests, he made the ducks in his next four innings, with scores of
0, 0, 8 and 0.
39.
‘Tujhe
pata hai tune kiska catch chhoda hai?' Wasim Akram asked Abdul Razzaq when the
latter dropped Sachin during their clash in the 2003 WorldCup. Sachin went on
to make 98 to help India beat their arch rival for the fourth successive time
in the World Cup.
40.
Sachin's highest score in Tests (and in first
class cricket) is 248 not out against Bangladesh in Dhaka in 2004/05.
41.
Sachin averaged 284 in that two Test series -
the highest in his career.
42.
He has played only one T20
International vs South Africa at Johannesburg in2006. He was bowled by Charl
Langeveldt for 10 though India eventually won by 6 wickets. He had earlier
taken the wicket of Justin Kemp. On February 24, 2010, in an ODI against South
Africa in Gwalior, Tendulkar became the first batsman ever to score a double
hundred in ODIs.
43. He was out three times for 99 in ODIs within the space of five months in 2007.
44.
Shane Warne's countdown in The Times in 2007 of
the greatest cricketers wastopped by Sachin, edging out Brian Lara, who
finished second. CurtlyAmbrose, Allan Border and Glenn McGrath were the others
in the top five.
45.
He was the first sportsperson to receive the
Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 2014.
46.
He was the first sportsperson to receive the
Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 2014.
47.On
September 3, 2010, Sachin became the first sportsperson to be awarded the
honorary rank of Group Captain by the Indian Air Force.
48.
Sachin has been dismissed in the 90s 23 times in
his international career, including being dismissed for 99 in ODIs thrice, all
three dismissals coming in 2007.
49.Sachin
played in six cricket World Cups, the most by any player in the game's history
(1992-2011). His dream came true in the 2011 World Cup when India lifted the
trophy at the Wankhede stadium by defeating Sri Lanka.
50. He has played under the captaincy of Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Ravi Shastri, Ajay Jadeja, Mohammad Azharuddin, Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virender Sehwag in ODIs.
51. Tendulkar is the only cricketer to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Sachin Tendulkar was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2019.
