Icon, hero and celebrity: Sachin Tendulkar turns 40
Cricketnext Staff Cricketnext | 24-Apr 08:15 AM
After playing 198 Tests and 463 ODIs in which he scored 100 international centuries, Sachin Tendulkar woke up a quadragenarian on Wednesday, but still with the same eagerness to play and perform as he had when he made his debut as a 16-year-old in 1989.
Speculations remain rife about his retirement, as has been the case for the last five years, more so since he lived his dream of winning the World Cup for India two years ago.
From then to now, Tendulkar quit ODIs to keep his Test career afloat but the flow of runs hasn't been anywhere near the standards he set for himself. In 21 Tests since India won the World Cup in 2011, Tendulkar has scored just 1145 runs at an average of 31.80. But that and media reports about his fast-approaching retirement haven't diminished Tendulkar's zeal to perform. In fact, he has a piece of advice.
"Your job is to write, my job is to play. I will stick to my job and you stick to yours," he said during a promotional event last week, adding, "People have been talking about my retirement since 2005, but that does not worry me at all."
Fifty-one centuries in Tests and 49 in ODIs are part of Tendulkar's 34,273 international runs, but he's been far from the batsman who Don Bradman thought was closest to how he played. It's something that finds evidence in his struggle to reach 100 centuries, which took a year to come.
The last of Tendulkar's Test hundred came in January 2011 in South Africa, when he scored 146. But undaunted, Tendulkar has chosen to march on, probably looking at another visit to South Africa later this year, even as compatriots Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly and more recently Ricky Ponting opting to hang their boots.
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