On This Day
Birthday Blast: Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar Turns 46
By CricShots - Apr 24, 2018 11:11 am
Views 56

The legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar has turned 46 today and we cannot believe that the man with ‘Godlike stature’ in India is nearing his half-century. Tendulkar dedicated 24 years of his life to the game of cricket and progressed to the highest of the standards. His record of 100 International centuries looks insurmountable.

Sachin Tendulkar

In the current generation of players, it is only the Indian skipper Virat Kohli who seems closer hos Sachin’s records. The Delhi batsman also taunted as the run machine has made 56 centuries so far in the half-way of his career and is at a great distance from Tendulkar’s batting record. Even the second-best ever on that list, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, has 71 centuries to his name and is 29-hundred apart from Tendulkar which speaks volume about latter’s batting caliber.

On the eve of his 45th birthday, Sachin recalled the memories of the 1998 birthday in Sharjah, he said, “It was a special one, a big one because it is something which happened with me for the first time on the cricket field. When I was batting there and suddenly I see this desert storm approaching us, it was like a Hollywood movie and the first thought that came to my mind was ‘Where is Gilchrist?’ because I thought I would be blown away and I was all prepared to grab him.”

WATCH: Sachin Tendulkar Spotted Playing Street Cricket In Mumbai

He further elaborated, “There was no time for recovery as such and by the time I realized the next day we were going to the ground and it happened to be my birthday so all the celebrations happened and a number of cakes were cut and here I was out in the middle. I was trying to focus and I knew it was all about spending as much time as possible there and then the rhythm was going to come back. I waited for my turn and eventually I played those couple of big shots of (Michael) Kasprowicz which went for two sixes in a row and from thereon things started rolling the way I wanted and we ended up winning the tournament. They were by far the best side in the world and go out chase 270-odd was a big ask but we were able to do that.”

Tendulkar’s celestial gifts redefined cricketing statistics: the only batsman to score 100 international centuries, the only player to play 200 Tests, the first to score a double-hundred in ODIs, the only batsman to score 30,000 international runs, and the owner of the highest number of runs and hundreds in both Tests and ODIs.

Sachin announced his arrival to international cricket when as a 16-year-old he scored 53 off 18 balls. But among the finest would be his Test-saving 119* at Old Trafford at age 17, 114 on a bouncy WACA at age 19; 155* versus Australia at Chepauk in 1988, a fourth innings 136 against Pakistan at Chepauk in 1999, 140* in the 1999 World Cup after the demise of his father, the Desert Storms (143 & 134) against Australia at Sharjah in 1988, 241* at Sydney in 2003-04.

sachin
Sachin playing in IPL

Tendulkar has been lavishly decorated: Arjuna Award (1994), Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award (1997), Padma Shri (1999) and Padma Vibhushan (2008), India’s fourth and second highest civilian awards respectively, and Bharat Ratna (2013), the highest civilian award – the youngest-ever and the only sportsperson to receive the honour. In 2012, Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. In 2013, the Indian Postal Service released a stamp of Tendulkar.

November 16, 2013, was one of the saddest days in post-Independent India. The man whose cricketing career was weaved with a billion plus Indians moved even the insensitive to tears with his thank you speech before leaving to what is arguably the most emotionally-charged farewell in cricket history.

Sachin, who retired from international cricket in 2013, is now associated with IPL franchise Mumbai Indians (MI) and is their team icon. In his IPL career, Sachin played 78 games and scored 2,334 runs. He has one hundred and 13 half-centuries to his name.

Here are some wishes for the master blaster from the cricketing fraternity:

 

Tags BirthdayMaster BlasterMumbai IndiansSachin TendulkarTeam India

Related stories

Hardik Pandya
IPL 2024
By CricShots - Apr 19, 2024
Hardik Pandya Fined Heavily by BCCI For Slow Over Rate In IPL 2024 Clash
logo