Sports and Health

Sachin Tendulkar

Tendulkar was born at Nirmal Nursing Home, Dadar, Mumbai, on 24 April 1973. His father Ramesh Tendulkar was a reputed Marathi novelist and his mother Rajni worked in the insurance industry. Ramesh named Tendulkar after his favorite music director, Sachin Dev Burman. Tendulkar has three elder siblings: two half-brothers Nitin and Ajit, and a half-sister Savita. They were Ramesh's children from his first marriage. He spent his formative years in the Sahitya Sahawas Cooperative Housing Society, Bandra (East). As a young boy, Tendulkar was considered a bully, and often picked up fights with new children in his school. He also showed an interest in tennis, idolizing John McEnroe. To help curb his mischievous and bullying tendencies, Ajit introduced him to cricket in 1984. He introduced the young Sachin to Ramakant Achrekar, a famous cricket coach and a club cricketer of repute, at Shivaji Park, Dadar.

Achrekar was impressed with Tendulkar's talent and advised him to shift his schooling to Sharadashram Vidyamandir (English) High School, a school at Dadar which had a dominant cricket team and had produced many notable cricketers. Prior to this, Tendulkar had attended the Indian Education Society's New English School in Bandra (East).  He was also coached under the guidance of Achrekar at Shivaji Park in the mornings and evenings. Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one-rupee coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. If Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Tendulkar now considers the 13 coins he won then as some of his most prized possessions.  He moved in with his aunt and uncle, who lived near Shivaji Park, during this period, due to his hectic schedule.

Meanwhile at school, he developed a reputation as a child prodigy. He had become a common conversation point in local cricketing circles, where there were suggestions already that he would become one of the greats. Sachin consistenly featured in his school Shardashram Vidyamandir (English)team in Matunga Gujarati Seva Mandal (popularly coined MGSM Shield).  Besides school cricket, he also played club cricket, initially representing John Bright Cricket Club in Mumbai's premier club cricket tournament, the Kanga League, and later went on to play for the Cricket Club of India. In 1987, at the age of 14, he attended the MRF Pace Foundation in Madras (now Chennai) to train as a fast bowler, but Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee, who took a world record 355 Test wickets, was unimpressed, suggesting that Tendulkar focus on his batting instead.  On January 20,1987, he also turned out as substitute for Imran Khan's side in an exhibition game at Brabourne Statdium in Mumbai,to mark the golden jubilee of Cricket Club of India. A couple of months later, former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads and consoled him to not get disheartened for not getting the Mumbai Cricket Association's "Best junior cricket award"(He was 14 years that time). "It was the greatest source of encouragement for me," Tendulkar said nearly 20 years later after surpassing Gavaskar's world record of 34 Test centuries. Sachin served as a ball boy in 1987 Cricket World Cup when India played against England in the semifinal in Mumbai. His season in 1988 was extraordinary, with Tendulkar scoring a century in every innings he played. He was involved in an unbroken 664-run partnership in a Lord Harris Shield inter-school game against St. Xavier's High School in 1988 with his friend and team-mate Vinod Kambli, who would also go on to represent India. The destructive pair reduced one bowler to tears and made the rest of the opposition unwilling to continue the game. Tendulkar scored 326 (not out) in this innings and scored over a thousand runs in the tournament. This was a record partnership in any form of cricket until 2006, when it was broken by two under-13 batsmen in a match held at Hyderabad in India.

On 24 May 1995, at the age of 22, Tendulkar married Anjali, a paediatrician and daughter of Gujarati industrialist Anand Mehta and British social worker Annabel Mehta. Sachin's father-in-law, Anand Mehta, is a seven-time national bridge champion. Anjali is six years his senior. They have two children, Sara (born 12 October 1997) and Arjun (born 24 September 1999). Arjun, a left hand batsman, has recently been included in under-14 probable’s list of Mumbai Cricket Association for off-season training camp. In January 2013 he was selected in Mumbai under-14 team for the west zone league

100th international century

Tendulkar scored his much awaited 100th international hundred on 16 March 2012, at Mirpur against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup. He became the first person in history to achieve this feat. Incidentally, it was Tendulkar's first ODI hundred against Bangladesh. He said "It's been a tough phase for me ... I was not thinking about the milestone, the media started all this, wherever I went, the restaurant, room service, everyone was talking about the 100th hundred. Nobody talked about my 99 hundreds. It became mentally tough for me because nobody talked about my 99 hundreds." Despite Tendulkar's century, India failed to win the match against Bangladesh, losing by 5 wickets

Sachin Tendulkar has announced his retirement from IPL after Mumbai Indians won the IPL 2013 title. Tendulkar was made the icon player and captain for his home side, the Mumbai Indians in the inaugural Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition in 2008. As an icon player, he was signed for a sum of US$1,121,250, 15% more than the second-highest paid player in the team, Sanath Jayasuriya.

In 2010 edition of Indian Premier League, Mumbai Indians reached the final of the tournament. Tendulkar made 618 runs in 14 innings during the tournament, breaking Shaun Marsh's record of most runs in an IPL season. He was declared player of the tournament for his performance during the season. He also won Best Batsman and Best Captain awards at 2010 IPL Awards ceremony.

Sachin Tendulkar captained Mumbai Indians in 4 league matches of second edition of the league. He scored 68 in the first match and 48 against Guyana. But Mumbai Indians failed to qualify for semifinals after losing the initial two matches. Tendulkar scored 135 runs.

In the 2011 IPL, against Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Tendulkar scored his maiden Twenty20 hundred. He scored 100 not out off 66 balls. In 51 matches in the IPL Tendulkar has scored 1,723 runs, making him the second-highest run-scorer in the competition's history.

He announced his retirement from IPL and Twenty20 cricket shortly after Mumbai Indians beat Chennai Super Kings by 23 runs at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday (26 May) to win the Pepsi Indian Premier League 2013.