AFP/Mumbai
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Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar yesterday announced his retirement from international one-day cricket after scoring a record-breaking 49 centuries in the 50-over format. |
The 39-year-old is the world’s top run-getter in one-day cricket, with 18,426 runs from 463 matches at an average of 44.83.
“I have decided to retire from the one-day format of the game,” he said in a statement.
“I feel blessed to have fulfilled the dream of being part of a World Cup winning Indian team (in 2011).
“I am eternally grateful to all my well-wishers for their unconditional support and love over the years.”
Tendulkar, who is also the highest scorer in Tests, said that he was quitting to allow the Indian selectors to build a team for the 2015 World Cup which is being held in Australia and New Zealand.
“The preparatory process to defend the World Cup in 2015 should begin early... I would like to wish the team all the very best for the future,” he said.
Tendulkar, who has been dubbed the “Little Master”, made his one-day debut aged 16 in Gujranwala on a tour of Pakistan in 1989. He lasted just two deliveries before being dismissed by Waqar Younis without scoring.
But in what turned out to be his last two one-day innings, during the Asia Cup in Dhaka in March, he made 114 against Bangladesh to record his 100th international century and then scored 52 against Pakistan. He played in six World Cups since 1992 and finally found success in his last appearance in the tournament when India defeated Sri Lanka in the final in Tendulkar’s home city of Mumbai on April 2, 2011.
He was carried off the pitch at the end of the game on the shoulders of his team-mates.
Tendulkar was two months away from his 37th birthday when he smashed the first-ever double century in the history of one-day internationals, making an unbeaten 200 against South Africa in Gwalior in February, 2010.
It was unclear if he will continue to play Test cricket, where he has scored a record 15,645 runs in 194 matches at an average of 54.32 with 51 centuries.
Former India skipper Krishnamachari Srikkanth said Tendulkar’s records can never be matched.
“I am surprised by his move but he is leaving ODI cricket on a high. I am sure he will want to leave on a high in Test cricket also. He will be looking forward to a good Test series against Australia,” he said.
“His records cannot be surpassed.”
Tendulkar also remembered the bowler in the batting maestro who was equally a match-winner earning for himself the title of ‘Man with the Golden Arm.’
Tendulkar was an unorthodox bowler and has 154 wickets from his 463 matches. Tendulkar has two five-wicket hauls and his best was 5 for 32 against Australia in Kochi, 1998.
Tendulkar could have earned more wickets, but a tennis elbow put paid to that.
He underwent an operation in 2005 for tennis elbow in England and since then he cut down on his bowling but always obliged his captains when a partnership needed to be broken.
Being an unorthodox bowler, Tendulkar was always attacked and the batsmen had to pay the price. Tendulkar first bowled in an ODI against England at Trent Bridge in 1990. He conceded 10 runs from just one over that he got as India won the match by five wickets.
He bagged his first man of the match award as a bowler in 1994 against the West Indies in Sharjah. He picked up four for 34 dismissing Clayton Lambert, Richie Richardson, Gus Logie and Jeff Dujon, to skittle out West Indies for 141. India won the match easily by seven wickets.
No one can forget the famous Hero Cup semi-final against South Africa at Kolkata in 1993. South Africa needed six off the last over and India skipper Mohammed Azharuddin gambled by asking Tendulkar to bowl the final over. Tendulkar gave away just three runs from the only over he bowled to leave the South Africans confused with his unorthodox spin.
Like his batting, Tendulkar also preserved his best bowling for against Australia. At Kochi in 1998, India set Australia a target of 310. The Australians were going great guns but a great spell by Tendulkar (5/32), who picked up the formidable quartet of Steve Waugh, Michael Bevan, Darren Lehmann and Damien Martyn, helped India win by 41 runs.
Tendulkar’s best bowling performances have come on home soil and in most of those matches he had failed as a batsman. And in most cases, the bowler in Tendulkar boosted his confidence as a batsman. Whenever the runs dried up, Tendulkar took to bowling.
It was in the last seven years that he cut down on his bowling after undergoing a surgery in London in 2005.The last time he bagged wickets was in 2007 against Pakistan in Guwahati. He bagged two for 32 from his five overs as India won the match by five wickets.
The world outside cricketing circles too showered praise on the batting maestro. “End of an era as Sachin retires from one-dayers. Hats off to 23 years of cricketing genius!” said Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan.
Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor wrote: “He probably will be the greatest sportsman India ever produced.”
Tendulkar was part of a famed Indian middle order which included Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Venkatsai Laxman—all of whom have now retired from all levels of the game. His announcement comes only weeks after Ricky Ponting, second only to Tendulkar in the list of highest run scorers in Test cricket, played his last match for Australia. Tendulkar is also the star batsman for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL), a domestic Twenty20 tournament.
Tendulkar’s top five one-day centuries
• 110 v Australia in Colombo, September 9, 1994
Tendulkar took 79 matches and more than four years to score his maiden one-day hundred -- 110 against Australia—but it was just the beginning of bigger deeds to come from his punishing blade.
Australian pacemen Glenn McGrath and Craig McDermott, and spinners Shane Warne and Tim May were at the receiving end on a humid day as Tendulkar hammered a 130-ball 110 as an opener to set up his team’s victory.
It was also the beginning of the great Tendulkar-Warne rivalry.
“He pleased the aesthetic as well as the mathematical mind in making his first one-day international. He gave immense pleasure not only by the achievement, but by his methods,” wrote the Hindu newspaper.
• 143 v Australia in Sharjah, April 22, 1998
Steve Waugh’s Australians were blown away by a “desert storm” called Tendulkar, who smashed five sixes and nine fours in his 131-ball 143 to help India qualify for the final of a one-day tournament in Sharjah.
India needed 276 to win, or 237 to qualify off 46 overs, when their target was revised following a sandstorm. India finished at 250-5, thanks to Tendulkar’s blitz.
The Australian attack comprising Damien Fleming, Michael Kasprowicz, Warne, Tom Moody and Waugh was reduced to a state of helplessness as runs flowed with amazing rapidity from Tendulkar’s bat.
“I just kept hitting and connecting. It was my day. What more can I say?” said Tendulkar, who was then two days short of his 25th birthday.
• 140 not out v Kenya at Bristol, May 23, 1999
Tendulkar’s explosive 101-ball 140 not out against a hapless Kenya was a century with a difference in that he played the World Cup match a few days after attending his father’s funeral in Mumbai.
He added 237 for the unfinished third-wicket stand with Rahul Dravid (104 not out) to set up his team’s victory.
“In Tendulkar, the team found its most loyal servant. One who, in the interest of the country, put his personal tragedy behind and produced an innings which shall rank among the all-time best,” wrote the Hindu newspaper.
• 200 not out v South Africa at Gwalior, February 24, 2010
That age could not wither Tendulkar was proved when he cracked an unbeaten 200 against South Africa, the first double-century in this format after 2,961 matches since the first one-dayer was played in January 1971. Tendulkar, two months short of his 37th birthday, batted with the enthusiasm of a youngster and hit three sixes and 25 fours against an attack that included Dale Steyn, Wayne Parnell, Charl Langeveldt and Jacques Kallis.
“I don’t know how to react,” said Tendulkar. “I’d like to dedicate this double-hundred to the people of India for standing behind me for the last 20 years throughout the ups and downs.”
• 114 v Bangladesh at Dhaka, March 16, 2012
Tendulkar became the first man in international cricket to complete a century of international hundreds with a robust 114 against Bangladesh in an Asia Cup match at Dhaka, but more significant were the circumstances in which he scored it.
Pressure had been mounting on him ever since he made his 99th ton against South Africa in a World Cup match in March 2011. He was the most relieved person when he reached the magic three-figure mark.
“The hundredth 100 was the most difficult to get. I really don’t know why, but it was,” Tendulkar said.
“Maybe because it had turned into a national obsession. Maybe because I wasn’t able to escape talk of the hundredth 100 and it was affecting me at a subconscious level. Maybe God was trying me harder.”
