Sachin Tendulkar is indeed widely regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time, often considered the greatest batter after Sir Don Bradman. His career was not only remarkable for his outstanding performance but also for the way he captured the hearts and minds of millions of cricket enthusiasts, making him an inspiration for many.
Throughout his career, Tendulkar achieved numerous milestones and set new records and went on to become a symbol of India's cricketing prowess and a national hero. His career spanned over two and a half decades, making him one of the most enduring and iconic figures in the history of cricket.
Today, on his birthday, let's know about the day that changed Tendulkar’s career forever. It was March 27, 1994, India was playing against New Zealand in Auckland. Navjot Singh Sidhu missed the game due to stiff neck. Then skipper Mohammad Azharuddin asked Tendulkar to open the innings and the rest is history.
The Master Blaster scored a quickfire 82 of just 49 games by hitting 15 fours and 2 sixes. He scored the runs at a strike rate of 167.35. Before that game, Sachin had played 69 games and scored 1758 runs at an average of 30.84.
It was the start of a historic career and since then, Sachin opened in 344 games and made 15,310 runs at an outstanding average of 48.29. A total of 45 out of his 49 hundreds came as an opener.
Later on, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly forged one of the most formidable opening partnerships in ODIs.
Sachin was the highest run scorer for India during World Cup 1996 and WC 2003 and WC 2011. The Master Blaster ended his career by scoring 18,426 runs in 463 ODIs with 49 hundreds and became one of the all-time greats in the 50-over format of the game.