Sachin Tendulkar

He met Anjali, a doctor, in 1990 and dated her for five years before tying the knot in 1995. The couple has two children. His son Arjun is also a budding cricketer.

He is actively involved with Apnalaya, an NGO, and sponsors 200 underprivileged children every year. He has also used his popularity to help many other charities raise large amounts of funds for several noble causes including cancer research and education.

He was born as the youngest of four siblings to Ramesh Tendulkar, a Marathi novelist and Rajni, who worked in the insurance industry. He was named after his father’s favorite music director, Sachin Dev Burman.

As a young boy he was a bully. His older brother encouraged him to play cricket in order to divert his attention from fights and got him enrolled at the academy of the coach, Ramakant Achrekar.

He went to Sharadashram Vidyamandir High School at the advice of Achrekar as the school had a rich cricketing tradition. He shone as a star cricketer playing for his school and soon people were predicting that he would one day become a famous player.

Along with his friend Vinod Kambli, he was involved in a record 664-run partnership in an inter school match against St. Xavier’s High School in 1988.

He embarked on his domestic first-class career in 1988 playing for Mumbai and scored a century on his very first match. He ended the season as the highest run scorer.

His performance in the first-class matches had been so mind blowing that he got selected into the national team after just one season. He made his international test debut against Pakistan in November 1989 aged just 16.

Even though he could not score many runs in the series, he got noticed both for his batting techniques and his dedication to the sport. He also made his debut in One Day International (ODI) in 1989.

During the 1991-92 tour of Australia, he made 148 runs in one of the matches and 114 in another, batting against the great bowlers of that time like Merv Hughes, Craig Mcdermott and Bruce Reid.

Asked to open the batting against Zealand in an ODI 1994, he set the stadium on fire blasting 82 runs off just 49 balls. The very same year he made his first ODI century against Australia.

Sachin is one of the most prolific cricketers ever—the first person to score a double century in ODIs, the only player to score a 100 centuries, and the only one to have amassed over 30, 000 runs in all forms of international cricket. It is no surprise that he occupies a legendary status in cricket-crazy India.

Sachin Tendulkar holds the world record for scoring highest number of runs and centuries in both the Test Cricket and the One Day Internationals. He has scored 15921 runs and 51 centuries in Test Cricket. While in ODIs, he has scored 18,426 runs and 49 centuries.

He was the first person to score a double century in ODIs.

He is the only cricketer so far to have played in 200 Test matches.

In addition to the numerous cricketing awards he has won, Sachin is also the proud recipient of several awards from the Government of India. He was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India’s highest sporting award, in 1997-98 for his achievements in cricket.