Sachin Tendulkar’s birthday today
Today is the 45th birthday of former Indian cricketer and captain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar who is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time.
He 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.
He is the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries, the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day International, the holder of the record for the number of runs in both ODI and Test cricket, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket.
In 2002, just 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.
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. 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.
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. He also won the 2010 Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year at the ICC awards.
In 2012, Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. 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. In 2012, he was named an Honorary Member of the Order of Australia.
Source: Wikipedia
