On April 24, 2003 Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar turns 30 years old.
When I look back at his career, I am astonished to see his achivements and the record he has broken.
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‘TEN’DULKAR LEAPs INTO THIRTIES WITH SUPREME GRACE](http://www.cricketnext.com/news1/next/ramaswamy/swamy601.htm)
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By S S Ramaswamy
Sachin Tendulkar
It’s amazing how time flies, isn’t it! It seems just the other day a child prodigy had stormed the Indian cricket scene to steal the hearts of millions of fans with his precocious talent. The then boy wonder has since grown into a mature individual with feet planted firmly on terra firma and has now left the twenties behind and moved into the thirties in life’s innings.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar has experienced the vicissitudes of life as everyone else does and, at the same time, captured the imagination of the cricket fans worldwide like no else after Sir Donald Bradman. And he has done wonders to the game’s popularity in the country of his birth like no else had achieved before or after him.
Tendulkar’s international career has been a truly glittering one, having already accumulated a phenomenal tally of over 21,000 runs combined in the two forms of the international game that also includes 65 centuries – 31 of them in Test cricket which has made him the second-best behind his Indian compatriot Sunil Gavaskar in the all-time list.
In the Cricket World Cup 2003 the ace batsman emerged as the best batsman of the tournament and was instrumental in guiding a shaky India through troubled waters into the Super Six stage and then onwards to the title-clash. Still some uncharitable remarks were passed against him following India’s defeat to Australia in the final at the Wanderers, Johannesburg. This shows even a Tendulkar can’t please everyone all the time!
More than the amount of runs Tendulkar has aggregated, his true stature and value should be judged by the manner in which he had got them – by scintillating the crowds with his exhilarating stroke-play and making them go home with their palates totally satisfied and bellies filled thoroughly with the tasty meal he had dished out. He’s been a role model from day one to all aspiring cricketers, humility personified and always eager to give the other teammates their due even when his had been the single-most important contribution to the team’s cause.
Tendulkar has earned the encomiums of past and present cricketers across the length and breadth of the cricket-playing world. All of them have nothing but praise for the impeccable manner in which he’s conducted himself on the field of play as well as off it despite his superstar status.
He was not carried away when the late Bradman, considered widely to be the best-ever batsman to have graced the game, likened his style of batting to his own and invited the Indian megastar to his Adelaide home on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
The talisman of the Indian team has never been carried away by the phenomenal amount of money he’s been earning over the years from the game and has remained ever so modest in spite of his stupendous achievements as a batsman in both versions of the international game and the amount of praise showered on him by all and sundry. He’s not been carried away by the superstardom he enjoys whenever and wherever he goes to play and the iconoclastic status that has been bestowed on him in India and elsewhere too.
Tendulkar made his international debut as an innocent 16-year-old boy, went through the trials and tribulations like every other human being, achieved in one life time what most cannot dream of fulfilling in several and, most significantly, has remained the same level-headed person.
That humility has been the Indian champion batsman’s endearing quality right through his career, which has spanned nearly 14 years and is likely to continue for several more if he can maintain his physical fitness.
Tendulkar has always been a very private individual and guards his personal life with the same amount of intensity and fervour with which he guards his wicket. And he likes nothing better than celebrating his birthday in the presence of his near and dear ones.
We, at Cricketnext.com, join millions of other fans around the globe in extending our warm birthday wishes to the master batsman.
