Famous Sports Personalities

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is a former Indian cricketer widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen in One Day International  and second only to Don Bradman in the all-time greatest list in Test cricket, popularly holding the title "God of Cricket" among his fans. 

In 2002, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (world’s most famous cricket reference book published annually in U.K )ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Don Bradman ( Australian Cricketer,  died in 2001 at the age of 92), and the second greatest one-day-international (ODI) batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards (west indies cricketer). 

Tendulkar was a part of the 2011 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team in the later part of his career (India won the tournament, defeating Sri Lanka by 6 wickets in the final in Mumbai, thus becoming the first country to win the Cricket World Cup final on home soil), his first such win in six World Cup appearances for India. He was also the recipient of "Player of the Tournament" award of the 2003 Cricket World Cup held in South Africa.

After a few hours of his final match on 16 November 2013, the Prime Minister's Office announced the decision to award him the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.[17][18] He is the youngest recipient to date and the first ever sportsperson to receive the award

Early years

Tendulkar was born at Nirmal Nursing Home on 24 April 1973. His father Ramesh Tendulkar was a reputed Marathi novelist .[29] Ramesh named Tendulkar after his favourite music director, Sachin Dev Burman. As a young boy, Tendulkar was considered a bully, and often picked up fights with new children in his school. To help curb his mischievous and bullying tendencies, Sachin’s brother Ajit introduced him to cricket in 1984. He introduced the young Sachin to Ramakant Achrekar, a famous cricket coach and a club cricketer of repute, at Dadar. Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets under the guidance of Archrekar.

Besides school cricket, he also played club cricket, and later went on to play for the Cricket Club of India. At the age of 14, Sachin joined MRF Pace foundation in Chennai to get trained as bowler, but Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee suggested that Tendulkar focus on his batting instead. A couple of months later, 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 said nearly 20 years later after surpassing Gavaskar's world record of 34 Test centuries.

In 1987, Tendulkar was selected to represent Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, India's premier domestic first-class cricket tournament, for the 1987–88 season. In 1988, aged just 15 years and 232 days, Tendulkar made his debut for Mumbai against Gujarat at home and scored 100 not out in that match, making him the youngest Indian to score a century on first-class debut. He stepped into international cricket in 1989, playing his first Test against Pakistan and was bowled by Waqar Younis. Tendulkar's performance through the years 1994–1999 coincided with his physical peak, in his early twenties. He scored his first ODI century in1994 against Australia in Sri Lanka. It had taken him 79 ODIs to score a century.

Tendulkar took over as captain in 1996 with huge hopes and expectations succeeding Azharuddin. Tendulkar's two tenures as captain of the Indian cricket team were not very successful.

Achievements/Honors

With a current aggregate of 15,470 Test runs, he surpassed Brian Lara's previous record tally of 11,953 runs as the highest run scorer in test matches in the second Test of Australia's 2008 tour of India. He also holds the record of highest number of centuries in both Test (51) and ODI (49) cricket.On 16 March 2012, Tenduklar scored his 100th international hundred.

In recognition with his impact on sport in a cricket-loving country like India, Tendulkar has been granted the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award, Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India. He was also chosen as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1997 and is ranked by the Wisden 100 as the second best test batsman and ODI batsman of all time.

In 2012, Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India

Retirement

On 23 December 2012, Tendulkar announced his retirement from ODIs. Tendulkar has already stated that he will not be playing T20 Internationals. In May, 2013, Tendulkar revealed his retirement from IPL. Sachin tendulkar was ranked 78th richest sportsman in the world according to the Forbes' list of world's highest-paid athletes for the year 2012.[18] In June 2013 list, Forbes ranks Sachin at 51st position in highest paid athletes list, with his total earnings were estimated to be USD 22 million.^[19

Philanthropy

Tendulkar sponsors 200 underprivileged children every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based NGO associated with his mother-in-law, Annabel Mehta.

No wonder why he is called Master Blaster