Description

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar ( born 24 April 1973)is a former Indian cricketer and captain, widely regarded to be thegreatest cricketer of all time. He took up cricket at the age ofeleven, made his Test debut on 15 November 1989 against Pakistan inKarachi at the age of sixteen, and went on to represent Mumbaidomestically and India internationally for close to twenty-fouryears. He is the only player to have scored one hundredinternational centuries, the first batsman to score a doublecentury in a One Day International, holds the record for mostnumber of runs in both ODI and Test cricket, the only player tocomplete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket.

In 2002 just half way 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 alltime, behind Viv Richards.Later in his career, Tendulkar was a partof the Indian team that won the 2011 World Cup, his first win insix 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 cricketerincluded in an all-time Test World XI named to mark the 150thanniversary of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.

Tendulkar received the Arjuna Award in 1994 for his outstandingsporting achievement, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 1997,India's highest sporting honour, and the Padma Shri and PadmaVibhushan awards in 1999 and 2008, respectively, India's fourth andsecond highest civilian awards. After a few hours of his finalmatch on 16 November 2013, the Prime Minister's Office announcedthe decision to award him the Bharat Ratna, India's highestcivilian award. He is the youngest recipient to date and the firstever sportsperson to receive the award. He also won the 2010 SirGarfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year at the ICC awards.In 2012, Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upperhouse of the Parliament of India. He was also the firstsportsperson and the first person without an aviation background tobe awarded the honorary rank of group captain by the Indian AirForce. In 2012, he was named an Honorary Member of the Order ofAustralia.

In December 2012, Tendulkar announced his retirement from ODIs.He retired from Twenty20 cricket in October 2013 and subsequentlyannounced his retirement from all forms of cricket,retiring on 16November 2013 after playing his 200th and final Test match, againstthe West Indies in Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium. Tendulkar played 664international cricket matches in total, scoring 34,357 runs.