Apr 1973๐ Backgroundtap to expand
Born in Bombay
Sachin Tendulkar is born in Sahitya Sahawas housing colony, Bandra East. Named after composer Sachin Dev Burman by his father, the poet Ramesh Tendulkar.
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Sachin Tendulkar makes the case for cricket's greatest career
He debuted at 16 against Pakistan's fastest attack and retired 24 years later with 100 international centuries. His career shows how individual brilliance can shape a nation's self-image.
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Understand in 2 minutes
Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut for India in Karachi on 15 November 1989 at age 16 years 205 days, walking out to face Pakistan's Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, and Imran Khan. He retired 24 years later on 16 November 2013 at the Wankhede Stadium, having scored 100 international centuries โ 51 in Tests, 49 in ODIs โ a record no one else has touched. He played 200 Tests, more than any cricketer ever. He scored 15,921 Test runs at an average of 53.78. The numbers, however vast, undersell the cultural fact: across 24 years, the Indian middle class watched his innings as a kind of national event. School schedules shifted. Stock-market trading volumes declined when he batted. When he was out, urban India shut television sets off mid-match. By the time he retired, Tendulkar had become inseparable from a particular era of Indian self-conception โ the post-1991 generation whose ambitions were, like his, larger than what their context had earlier allowed. The career arc is sport, but it's also a way of dating a generation.
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The people who shaped the career
Ramakant Achrekar โ the Shivaji Park coach who trained Tendulkar from age 11, running him across three cricket grounds a day: 6 AM practice, school, Cross Maidan in the afternoon, Shivaji Park in the evening. Achrekar never praised Tendulkar publicly, believing it would make him complacent. Ajit Tendulkar โ Sachin's older brother who identified the talent and took him to Achrekar at age 11. Ajit stepped back from his own cricket ambitions to manage his brother's career in its early phase. Sunil Gavaskar โ whose technical template Tendulkar adapted. Gavaskar's gift of his batting pads to young Sachin is one of cricket's famous mentorship stories. Wasim Akram โ not a supporter but a formative opponent. Tendulkar's repeated duels with Akram in the 1990s were the defining contest of that era of world cricket. Anjali Tendulkar โ who gave up her own medical career at the point it would have required her to choose between it and supporting Sachin's cricket. Tendulkar has said in interviews that her support across the career arc was its essential condition.
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