In 1990, aged 17, he became the youngest Indian to notch up a hundred in test cricket. In 1996, aged 23, he became the youngest Indian to captain in the ODIs. He is 37 now, of an age by which most sportsmen have retired or had the sheen of their armour worn off by the harsh scrutiny of spotlights. Yuvraj Singh joked last year, ?We have started calling him grandpa.? There have been career-threatening injuries along the way. There have been patchy phases when critics started calling for his retirement. Yet, here we are in 2010, with Tendulkar still in first-class public standing and far from done with resetting records. In February, he became the first ever cricketer to score a double century in an ODI. He went on to win his first ICC?s Player of the Year Award, even while returning to the top of the world batting rankings after eight years. For a grand Xmas finale, Tendulkar has dished out his 50th test century. The nearest contender, Ricky Ponting, is 11 centuries away.
Given that cricket fans can be as pitiless as they are passionate in their worship, it is a wonder that Tendulkar has remained really well-liked through the years. Especially given how often our expectations of him fly off the field, how often his runs become a proxy for my dreams, your dreams. One of his first endorsements was for Band-Aid and Ramachandra Guha has noted how Tendulkar has often become a sort of one-man Band-Aid for the Indian psyche, bringing us together across class and creed. Here?s raising a cheer to many more centuries from the gifted Little Master.