Sachin Tendulkar

Early years and personal life

Tendulkar was born in Bombay (now Mumbai). His father, Ramesh Tendulkar, a Marathi novelist, named Tendulkar after his favourite music director, Sachin Dev Burman. Tendulkar's elder brother Ajit encouraged him to play cricket. Tendulkar has two other siblings: a brother Nitin, and sister Savita.

Tendulkar attended Sharadashram Vidyamandir (High School),^[1] where he began his cricketing career under the guidance of his coach and mentor, Ramakant Achrekar. During his school days he attended the MRF Pace Foundation 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.^[19]

When he was young, 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.^[20]

While at school, he developed a reputation as a child prodigy. He had become a common conversation point in Mumbai circles, where there were suggestions already that he would become one of the greats. 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 in 1988 with 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* in this innings and scored over a thousand runs in the tournament.^[21] 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.

When he was 14, Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads. "It was the greatest source of encouragement for me," he said nearly 20 years later after surpassing Gavaskar's world record of 34 Test centuries.^[22] On 24 May 1995^[23], Sachin Tendulkar married Anjali, a paediatrician and daughter of Gujarati industrialist Anand Mehta. They have two children, Sara (born 12 October 1997), and Arjun (born 24 September 1999).^[24]

Tendulkar sponsors 200 underprivileged children every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based NGO associated with his mother-in-law, Annabel Mehta.^[25]

Captaincy

Tendulkar's two tenures as captain of the Indian cricket team were not very successful. When Tendulkar took over as Captain in 1996, it was with huge hopes and expectations. However, by 1997 the team was performing poorly. Azharuddin was credited with saying "Nahin jeetega! Chote ki naseeb main jeet nahin hai!",^[49] which translates into: "He won't win! It's not in the small one's destiny!".^[50]

Tendulkar, succeeding Azharuddin as captain for his second term, then led India on a tour of Australia, where the visitors were comprehensively beaten 3–0 by the newly crowned world champions.^[51] Tendulkar, however, was at his usual best and won the player of the tournament award as well as player of the match in one of the games. After another Test series defeat, this time by a 0–2 margin at home against South Africa, Tendulkar resigned, and Sourav Ganguly took over as captain in 2000.

Tendulkar remains an integral part of the Indian team's strategic processes. He is often seen in discussion with the captain, at times actively involved in building strategies. Former captain Rahul Dravid publicly acknowledged that Tendulkar had been suggesting moves such as the promotion of Irfan Pathan up the batting order which, although only temporary, had an immediate effect on the team's fortunes.