Sachin Tendulkar Player Profile, Age, Career, Bowling & Batting Stats

Sachin Tendulkar. The name is more than enough to ring a bell in the minds of Indian as well as World Cricket fans. Tendulkar was a depiction of what a hard-working and ambitious cricketer looked like.

He is by far one of the most complete batsmen ever whose straight drive and ability to take the world's most dangerous bowler from his teenage days, earned him the title - "God of Cricket".

Having made his debut at the tender age of 16 when cricketers nowadays play club and state cricket, Sachin Tendulkar was facing blows on his face from Waqar Younis' fiery deliveries. To this day, he stands as the only cricketer from India to not have played any

First-class cricket before making his International debut.

Sachin Tendulkar, right from his early days, had a fearless approach and always believed in preparation. His batting was all about balance, weighed foot movement, ability to read a bowler's mind, and his hands.

His audacity was such that, despite enduring a facial blow from Waqar, Sachin kept batting on his debut Test match against Pakistan in Karachi.

On his 2nd Test match, Sachin scored his first of so many half-centuries in Faislabad and he had to wait for 2 long years to score a century. That day arrived in the best venue possible - Sydney where Sachin scored 148* on January 1992. He scored his second Test match later against Australia in Perth.

In that Test series against Australia, upon seeing his flawless batting, Aussie legend Late Sir Donald Bradman gave him a compliment that cricketers of that age only dreamt of. Bradman had told his wife that watching Sachin reminds him of himself.

That compliment itself was huge and one that helped him take big steps forward. Before turning 25, Sachin Tendulkar already had 16 Test centuries.

In the year 2000, Sachin became the first batsman ever in history to score 50 International centuries, and by 2008, he overtook Brian Lara's record of the highest run-scorer in Test cricket as the years went by he eclipsed many other records.

While Sachin Tendulkar was everything that he had dreamt of or not even dreamt of, his aspiration of winning a major ICC trophy with India had different plans.

He is the only Indian player to have played 6 different Cricket World Cup editions, all because of his passion and dream to become a world champion one day.

Players who were far less talented than him had won the coveted trophy before him and Sachin had to for a long time for his turn. He played his first CWC in 1992 when the tournament was co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

In his first edition along with some legendary names like Azharuddin and Navjot Singh Sidhu among others, the Indians had bowed out from Round 1 itself after finishing 7th.

Sachin had scored 283 runs from 8 matches at an average of 47.17 with 3 half-centuries in the 92 edition. In 1996 when the World Cup was co-hosted by India-Pakistan-Sri-Lanka, Sachin scored 523 runs but India was knocked out of the semi-finals.

In the 1999 World Cup which took place in Europe, Sachin had another successful tournament of 253 runs but India exited from round 2.

In 2003 under the fearless captaincy of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin had his most successful edition ever, scoring 673 runs from 11 matches, and was adjudged as man of the tournament for the same. India had reached the finals of the World Cup for the first time since winning it in 1983 but Ricky Ponting's Australia denied them from getting over the line.

That was Sachin's first time enduring a final loss. In 2007, he played just 3 matches and India exited from round 1 under Rahul Dravid's captaincy.

The 2011 WC, the first edition since 1996 to take place in India, Sachin Tendulkar's and many more Indians' waits ended with that 6 six off MS Dhoni's bat.

Tendulkar was best known for his century against England and his pairing with Virender Sehwag in the opening slot. He left the CWC after becoming the highest-ever run-scorer with 2278 runs and the day of retirement came on November 16, 2013, when he played his last Test match against West Indies.

Sachin Tendulkar left cricket after scoring 18,426 ODI runs from 463 matches, 15,921 Test runs from 200 matches, and 10 runs in T20 cricket (since he played only 1 for India). His hunger for a trophy was visible in IPL as well.

While playing for his beloved Mumbai Indians, Sachin had remained on the losing side of the 2010 final.

But in 2013 before his retirement took place, Rohit Sharma helped Sachin fulfill his dream of becoming an Indian Premier League champion and to this day, the God is seen in the MI dugout, every single season.

He has a number of records to his name as well. Sachin has the most career Test matches (200), most runs in Test matches, most hundreds in Test matches (51), and also most nineties in Test matches (10).

Sachin has the most fours (4076+) combined across formats, most fifties across formats (264), most runs across formats (34,357), and most player of the match awards (76).

He is also among those exclusive cricketers (he had to be) to score 1000 runs, claim 50 wickets, and take 50 catches. Sachin is the fastest to 15,000 Test runs as he completed that in 300 matches.

All in all, there was, there is and there will always be only one God of Cricket and that is Arjuna, Khel Ratna, Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan, and Bharat Ratna Awardee Sachin Tendulkar.