From wearing lipstick during his maiden tour of Pakistan in 1989 to scoring 10,000 Test runs on Wednesday, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar has travelled a 15-year journey to be widely regarded as the best contemporary batsman — and one of the best ever.
When Tendulkar, playing his 122nd Test, scored the 10,000th run on the first day of the second Test against Pakistan at Kolkata's Eden Gardens on Wednesday, he became only the fifth batsman in Test history — and second Indian after Sunil Gavaskar — to reach the coveted mark.
Plus, if you add his 37 One-Day International centuries and 34 Test hundreds, the 31-year-old has a world record of 71 international three-figure innings — a mark that will be extremely difficult to surpass.
The 31-year-old has staggering statistics and imposing persona but has his feet firmly planted on the ground. This is his biggest asset — apart from the fact that he is a solid batsman who has tackled every kind of bowling attack in 15 years of international cricket.
At the end of his 52-run knock on Wednesday, Tendulkar now has an aggregate of 10,025 runs in 195 innings of 122 Tests. He has scored those runs at 57.61 with an unbeaten 248 as his highest. In addition to that, he has cracked 40 half-centuries and held 75 catches.
{{/usCountry}}At the end of his 52-run knock on Wednesday, Tendulkar now has an aggregate of 10,025 runs in 195 innings of 122 Tests. He has scored those runs at 57.61 with an unbeaten 248 as his highest. In addition to that, he has cracked 40 half-centuries and held 75 catches.
{{/usCountry}}Tendulkar has also played 342 One-Day Internationals — the maximum after Wasim Akram's world-record 356 — in which he has scored 13,497 runs at 44.84.
Despite the stardom and loads of accolades that he has received, from the public to the government, he is still humble in his speech and wears a pleasing smile.
Tendulkar is perhaps the only batsman about whose style the late Sir Don Bradman once said emulated his own. The all-time great Australian even invited him on his birthday in the mid-1990s. A couple of days later, he was at Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna the country's highest sporting award.
Tendulkar made his international debut on the 1989 tour of Pakistan, where he audaciously hit Waqar Younis for four immediately after he was felled by his bouncer.
It was also during that tour that he once wore lipstick and "looked so sweet" during a weekend team party, recalls former India pacer Vivek Razdan who was a member of that team.