Sachin Tendulkar

Early Life

Sachin Tendulkar was born on 24th of April, 1973 in Mumbai to a Marathi Novelist named Ramesh Tendulkar. Sachin got encouraged to play cricket from his elder brother Ajit, and started playing the game at an early on age in his school, Sharadashram Vidya Mandir. Under the guidance of his coach, Ramakant Achrekar, he learnt the basics of the game and showed his prowess along with his school mate and one more future batsman of the Indian team, Vinod Kambli.

Test and ODI Debut

Sachin Tendulkar made his Test Cricket debut with a Test match played against Pakistan in Karachi in the year 1989, in which he scored 15 runs before being bowled out by Waqar Younis, a yet one more Cricketer who debuted with this match. He began his ODI Cricket career in a match against Pakistan played on 18th of December 1989 at Gujranwala, Pakistan. He could, though, not make a single run in this match and just after faced 2 balls was caught by Wasim Akram on a ball by Waqar Younis .

Remarkable Achievements

Tendulkar has shown some of his best batting performance against the Cricket team of Australia, one of the strongest teams during his period. As a matter of fact, the legendry Sir Donald Bradman had at one time apparently told her wife that the playing style of Sachin remind him of his own game in his youth.

Sachin has always created new records and destroyed countless of them that had been already established. At the age of 17 years he scored his first Test century, and by the age of 25 he had scored 16 of them. At the moment he is the Cricketer with major number of Test and ODI centuries to his credit, and outclass Brian Lara as the biggest Test scorer in the year 2008.

Captaincy

Twice in his Cricket career, Sachin had been selected the Captain of the Indian Cricket team, but none of them proved to be much successful. Also, the anxiety of Captaincy took a toll upon his performance as a batsman.

Overall Performance

In his overall Test Career till April 2009, Sachin Tendulkar has played 159 Test matches and has scored 12773 runs in them, including 42 centuries and 53 half-centuries, with an average of 54.58 runs and a maximum score of 248 Not Out. In these matches, he also grabbed 44 wickets giving away 2272 runs at an average of 51.63 runs.

In his One Day International (ODI) Cricket career, however, Sachin has played 425 matches till April 2009, and scored 16684 runs including 43 centuries and 91 half-centuries, with an standard of 44.37 runs and a highest score of 186 Not Out.

Awards and Recognitions

For his great capability as a Cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar has been bestowed upon the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award, Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India. The Cricket magazine Wisden named him the Cricketer of the year in 1997, and according to Wisden 100, he is the 2nd Best Test Batsman and the Best ODI Bestman of all times.