Who is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar?

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, born 24 April 1973, is a former cricketer and a former captain of India. He first took to cricket when he was 11 years old.

He represented India in 1989 against Pakistan as a 16 year old boy and went on to play for India for 24 long years amassing 30,000 runs across all formats of the game. Test Cricket, One Day Internationals and T20s. He is the first batsman to score a double century in ODIs and 100 centuries across the 3 formats in international cricket.

In 2002, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time behind the legendary Don Bradman and the second behind Sir Vivian Richards in ODIs. He represented India in 6 World Cup Tournaments and went on to win it in 2011. He had previously been awarded Player of the Tournament in the South Africa edition of the World Cup in 2003.

He received many many awards, the most notable being the Arjuna Award in 1994 for outstanding sporting achievement, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 1997 India's highest sporting award. The Padma Shree and Padma Vibhushan awards in 1999 and 2008 respectively, India's 4th and 2nd highest civilian awards and in 2013 the Bharat Ratna India's highest civilian award. He was nominated as an Honorary Member of the Order of Australia.

He is nicknamed God of Cricket, Little Master and Master Blaster...he retired from ODI in December 2012, and T20s in October 2013 and from Test Cricket in Nov 2013 after playing his 200th match.