Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was born April 24, 1973, in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. His father, Ramesh Tendulkar, was a language professor; he died in 1999. Sachin has two brothers and a sister. He began playing cricket at age 2 1/2, with his nanny in the family's backyard, using a broomstick for a bat. As he grew, he began playing street cricket with neighborhood children, and

Sachin Tendulkar

after watching the World Cup on television at age ten, he began to get serious about the game. Although left-handed, he learned to bat with his right hand as a youth. Street rules required players to bat with their nonpreferred hand to increase their chances of being eliminated. After the family moved close to Shivaji Park in Bombay, Sachin's game began to improve. At ages twelve and thirteen, he was practicing and playing school matches a total of twelve hours a day on some days. He once played fifty-four matches in a row. His coach, Ramakant Acherkar, encouraged Sachin to play his hardest by placing a rupee on top of one of his wicket stumps and offering the money to anyone who got Sachin out. If no one did, Sachin won the money. He still treasures thirteen of the coins he won in that way.

At age thirteen, Sachin scored his first century (100 runs) at school, and the following year he was invited to a net session with the Indian professional team. At age fifteen, he and a friend set a world record of runs (664) for his school, and at sixteen, Sachin was picked to play his first Test match for India against Pakistan. His father signed the papers for him, because Sachin was too young. By age seventeen, Sachin had toured New Zealand and England with the team. On the England tour he scored a match-saving 119 points, which made him the second youngest test century-maker ever. From there, his career has become better each year. On March 31, 2001, he became the first batsman to score 10,000 runs in one-day cricket, setting this record during a five-match series against Australia. He has broken the world record for maximum centuries in International cricket and continues to set records with every passing season. At the end of 2002 he was ranked third in the world in Test batting and was preparing for a forty-seven-day tour of New Zealand, after recovering from a hamstring injury.