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Star of the Month

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (born April 24, 1973) is a living cricket legend and member of the Indian cricket team since 1989. He made his international debut against Pakistan in 1989 at the age of 16. He is widely regarded as one of the best batsmen of all time and possibly the greatest of his era. Sir Donald Bradman, the Australian great said of Sachin, "He reminds me of myself".

Early Days

Born in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) into a middle class family, Sachin was named after

his family's favorite musician Sachin Dev Burman. He played his first international match against Pakistan in Karachi facing up to the likes of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. He scored just 15 runs and was bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made his debut in that match. It was an innings very different from how the rest of his career went. He followed it up with his maiden test fifty a few days later at Faisalabad. However he could not get a century in that series.

His One-day International (ODI) debut on December 18 was equally disappointing where he was dismissed without scoring a run again by Waqar Younis. The series was followed by a non-descript tour of New Zealand in which he did not make remarkable contribution. In the tour of England in 1990 he scored his maiden test century but the other scores were not remarkable. It was in the 1991/1992 tour of Australia that he made his mark as a remarkable batsman. He has been man of the match 11 times in test matches and Man of the Series twice, both times in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.

His maiden ODI century came on September 9, 1994 against Australia in Sri Lanka at Colombo.

He was named by Wisden as one of the Cricketers of the Year 1997 which was the first calendar year in which he scored a 1000 test runs. He repeated the feat in 1999, 2001 and 2002.

Achievements Some remarkable achievements of his career are :

*	Most runs (over 13000) and centuries (37) in one-day internationals.
*	First cricketer to cross 10,000-run mark in ODIs.
*	Most centuries among those who have played less than 125 test matches.
*	Among those who have played over 100 test matches, he is the only one with a batting average above 55.
*	Only second Indian to cross 9000 runs in Test matches, and break Sunil Gavaskar's record of 34.
*	He has the most centuries in ODI cricket against Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
*	To go with this he has more than eight thousand runs in Test cricket and 35 hundreds, at an average of 56. An average above 50 distinguishes a batsman as an all time great.

While his batting ranks him among the best in the world, he is also a part-time bowler and has played a crucial role as a leg spinner or a medium pace bowler who tends to break partnerships. He has more than a hundred wickets in ODIs and 35 in tests, though his bowling averages are above 40. He continues to perform well under the massive weight of expectation of hundreds of millions of cricket followers, in India and around the world, and most recently was named Player Of The Tournament in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.