Happy Birthday : Sachin Tendulkar [ 24 April ]

24 April 2013 :: Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was  born 24 April 1973 into a Rajapur Saraswat Brahmin family in Bombay (now Mumbai).  His father Ramesh Tendulkar was a reputed Marathi novelist and his mother Rajni worked in the insurance industry.  Ramesh named Tendulkar after his favourite music director, Sachin Dev Burman.

Sachin  is an Indian cricketer widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen in One Day International  and second only to Don Bradman in the all time greatest list in Test cricket. In 2002, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Don Bradman, and the second greatest one-day-international (ODI) batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards.  Tendulkar was a part of the 2011 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team in the later part of his career, his first such win in six World Cup appearances for India. He was also the recipient of “Player of the Tournament” award of the 2003 Cricket World Cup held in South Africa.

Tendulkar has been Honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award, India’s second highest civilian award, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award [ India’s highest sporting honour ]. He was also the first sportsperson and the first one without aviation background to be awarded the honorary rank of Group Captain by the Indian Air Force. Tendulkar has received Honorary Doctorates from University of Mysore and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences.  Sachin holds the 19th rank in ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen as of 17 March 2013.  On 1 August 2012, Sachin Tendulkar was nominated for the ICC People’s Choice award for the third time. In 2012, he was nominated to Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India.