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ANDROMEDA😉

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (pronunciation (helpinfo)) (the first name occasionally spelt Saurav) also known as "Dada" is an Indian cricketer. Born 8 July 1972, lives at Barisha in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, West Bengal, he made his One Day International debut against Australia in 1992, and a Test debut versus England in 1996. He went on to become the captain of Indian cricket team from 2000 to 2005. He has led India to the World Cup 2003 finals, and holds the Indian captaincy record for the most Test victories. Following an exit from the national team in early 2006, he was recalled to the Indian Test side in December, staging a successful comeback in the 2006 - 2007 Indian tour of South Africa.

Ganguly is a left-handed batsman and a right-handed medium-pace bowler. He is a natural right-hander, but converted to the southpaw stance at a young age so that he could use his left-handed brother, Snehasish Ganguly's equipment.

Nicknamed Bengal Tiger, Prince of Calcutta and also affectionately called Dada (elder brother in Bengali) by his team-mates and Lord Snooty by his opponents, he is an aggressive player on and off the field. He made his one-day international debut in 1992, but his talents did not truly receive the recognition they deserved until India's 1996 tour of England when he scored centuries both in his debut Test as well as the next match (the second and third Tests of the series). Ganguly is only the third cricketer ever to score a century on debut at Lord's, after Harry Graham and John Hampshire (Andrew Strauss has also since accomplished the feat). Rahul Dravid once commented, "On the off-side, first there is God, then there is Ganguly". He scored 183 against Sri Lanka at Taunton in the 1999 Cricket World Cup, the highest by an Indian in World Cup cricket. He became captain within a year after the world cup and scored 2 centuries in the 2000 champions trophy immediately after. While he has achieved significant successes as captain, his individual performance deteriorated during his captaincy, especially after successes in the world cup and the tour of Australia in 2003 and the Pakistan series in 2004. Following indifferent form in 2004 and poor form form in 2005, he was dropped from the team in October 2005. He has since remained active on the first class cricket scene in hopes of a recall, but his performance has been mixed - he has hit a couple of centuries in domestic cricket, but his English county stint in 2005 and subsequent appearances in the Challenger Trophy were failures.

Consistent batting failures of the Indian cricket team, more so than his own mediocre to good performances in the domestic circuit led to his recall to the Indian Test squad in November 2006. Although India lost 2-1, Sourav Ganguly was the highest run getter for India, and only batsman to hit more than 200 runs in total. On January 12th 2007 he was recalled for the one day squad as well, where India play host to West Indies and Sri Lanka in a one day tournament. On January 21st, Ganguly hit a match winning 98 against the West Indies.

Sourav Ganguly made his international debut against Australia in India's tour of Australia in 1992. He didn't score much and was dropped from further matches. Four years later, following a good domestic record, he was recalled into the national side for a Test series against England in England. He made his Test debut at Lords, with a century in that match and repeated the feat in the match which followed. He was retained for the One day team and he went on become a regular in both forms of the game. One of his most memorable performance was in the final of the Independence cup at Dhaka against Pakistan, when the entire Pakistan team walked back in stating bad light along with the umpires, but Ganguly refused to come in. Ganguly scored 124 in that match in darkness, while Hrishikesh Kanitkar scored the winning runs with a boundary.

In 2000, after the match fixing scandal Ganguly was named the captain of the India team. In 2003 under his captaincy India reached the World Cup Final, where they lost to the Australians. Ganguly has scored over 10,000 runs in One Day Cricket and over 5,000 runs in Test cricket, including 12 centuries in Tests and 22 in ODIs. In terms of number of centuries in ODIs, he is exceeded by Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya. Sourav, along with Sachin Tendulkar, formed by far the most successful opening pair in One Day Cricket, having amassed the highest number of century partnerships (16) for the first wicket. Together, they have scored 5,308 runs at an average of 45.37 [1]. Sourav has been succeeded by Virender Sehwag as opener.

He is the third player to cross 10,000 ODI runs and so far the fastest one to do so, after Sachin Tendulkar and Inzamam Ul Haq, and reached 6000, 7000, 8000 and 9000 ODI runs milestones in least number of matches played. Sourav can bowl medium-pacers as well, but has under-achieved in this aspect in Test matches, taking 25 wickets in 84 matches, at an average of 52.47. In 2004, he was awarded the Padma Shri. As of 2006, he is the only Indian captain to win a Test series in Pakistan (although two of the three tests of that series was led by Rahul Dravid).

Sourav Ganguly's 10 year international cricket career could be easily bisected into 2 halves, the pre and the post Y2K eras. The significance of the year 2000 lies not only in the fact that he became the captain of the Indian team but also in the fact that the ICC introduced the one bouncer per over rule in ODIs starting from that year. This introduction of the rule by the ICC had a negative impact on Sourav Ganguly's batting average, which plunged from a high 45.5 before the year 2000 to a low 34.9 between the 5 year period of 2001-2005[2]. Also, against Test playing nations (which included Zimbabwe and Bangladesh), his overall average plunged further down to 30.66, as did his 'away' average which fell to 29. He managed to score only (6) centuries between 2001-2005, of which 3 centuries were against Kenya & 1 was against Namibia.[3] This sudden drop in his batting average against Test playing nations after 2001 was clearly a result of the short pitch stuff he had to encounter from opposition bowlers. As S.Rajesh, the assistant editor of Cricinfo analyzes, Sourav Ganguly has been dismissed numerous times fending off the short ball[4] since 2001 and his average of 11.92 against the short ball has been the lowest among contemporary Indian batsman who played more than 80 ODI matches. The former captain has also been uncomfortable while attempting the 'pull' and the 'hook' shots when bowlers have dug it in short, often lasting less than five(4.89) balls before being dismissed[5].

Also, Sourav Ganguly's Test career had been riddled with lean patches, the first of which stretched for 3 years from Dec 1999 to Dec 2002 [6], during which his batting average fell to 31.7 in 36 consecutive Test matches over 60 innings. The next biggest lean patch of his career occurred after the 2003 World Cup, when his ODI average fell to 28 and this was when his place in the team was questioned by numerous Indian cricket fans. He averaged 23.5 in 20 ODI matches between Sep 2004 and Sep 2005[7], before being finally dropped from the ODI side.

Despite his hot and cold streaks Sourav Ganguly is only the third Indian Test match batsman to maintain a career average that never dipped below 40 runs per innings for his entire Test career. This is more due to his initial career graph, which plummeted alarmingly in the second half of his career. Whereas his contemporaries like Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag and Laxman have shown steady improvement in their career graphs, his own happens to have a pronounced downward trend. The other two who achieved this feat are Sunil Gavaskar and Mohammad Azharuddin.

Sourav Ganguly also shares with G.R. Viswanath of India the record for scoring at least 10 or more centuries and his team either winning or drawing each and every match in which he scored a century. He also shares with Mohammad Azharuddin the record of scoring two consecutive hundreds in his first two Test matches, though Azharuddin bettered that by scoring a third consecutive hundred in his first three Test matches.

Sourav Ganguly has the highest Test and ODI aggregate of any left-handed batsman India has produced and his 12 Test and 22 ODI centuries are also a record for any Indian left-hander.

It was, however, as captain of the Indian team that Sourav Ganguly's biggest achievements occurred. He led India in a record 49 Test Matches, winning 21 of those, including 12 of them outside India. All three figures are records for Indian Test captains. He also led India to her first series wins in both Tests and ODIs in Pakistan, a feat that had eluded India for over 50 years. Ganguly also led India to more Test wins (11) outside India between 2000 and 2005 than all Indian captains had done between 1980 and and 2000.He led India to victory over steve waugh led Australia in the 2001 border-gavaskar trophy which is considered as one of the greatest in Indian cricket history. However, his captaincy record has no doubt been immensely helped by numerous series against the minnows Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Against other teams, his captaincy record 12 wins and 12 losses, which is still better than other Indian captains . He also benefitted immensely from the peaking of all the great Indian players during his tenure - Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Kumble, Srinath and Harbhajan.

November 30, 2006, turned out to be lucky for Sourav Ganguly as the national board of selectors, chaired by Dilip Vengsarkar, decided to reinstate him in the team for the three-Test series against South Africa. The decision came after India had been knocked out early of the Champions Trophy, held in India, as well as losing the opening three games of an ODI series with South Africa. The selectors decided to back experience in a total reversal of coach Greg Chappell's mission to inject fresh blood into the Indian cricket team and Ganguly was selected alongside VVS Laxman and Zaheer Khan, who had also been removed from the Test team recently. Ganguly and Zaheer both fared well. Ganguly emerged as leading run getter for India in the recently concluded Test series with South Africa.

January 12, 2007 Sourav Ganguly was reinstated to the ODI team for the first two ODIs against West Indies. This comes almost after 15 months of his removal from the ODI side in 2005. He staged a good comeback by scoring a match-winning 98 run knock in Nagpur on his return in the first ODI. He was also selected in the 30 probables list for World Cup 2007 to be held in West Indies starting in March. He will most likely open the innings with Tendulkar as Virender Sehwag has been dropped for the first two ODIs.

This was good news to his fans who believed that India's most successful captain deserved the farewell of a champion. Sourav is a passionate man and fans (possibly selectors too) believe that, after spending ten months in the wilderness, Sourav's desire to succeed at the highest level and his experience will hold him in good stead.

[edit] Controversies

Ganguly is an aggressive player and has often attracted controversy. He has attracted the wrath of match referrees quite a few times, the most severe of which was a ban for 6 matches by ICC match referee Clive Lloyd for slow over rates against Pakistan and therefore his tour to Sri Lanka for the Indian Oil Cup 2005 was uncertain. These circumstances led to Rahul Dravid being made captain for the tour. Later, Justice Albey Sachs reduced the punishment from 6 matches to 4, and this permitted Ganguly to join the team, but as a player and not captain. In his opening match he made the highest score of the side (51) taking (110) balls[8]. He was again named captain for the Zimbabwe tour of August-September 2005. With this, he has captained India in the highest number of Tests (50).

During the 2003 World Cup final against Australia, Ganguly won the toss and decided to field. This decision raised eyebrows but Sourav remained confident that there would be moisture on the pitch that would help his bowlers, however the bowlers flopped and Sourav performed poorly with the bat. India went on to lose by 125 runs, a staggering defeat.

Ganguly's performance in the last couple of seasons has been really poor. This put his place in the Indian team under pressure. In the tour of Zimbabwe, in which he was newly reinstated as skipper, Ganguly ground out a painfully slow century, against what is regarded as one of the weakest bowling attacks in international cricket. During the match he told reporters that newly-appointed coach Greg Chappell had asked him to stand down as captain - a comment which Chappell later played down. However, forty-eight hours after saying that he respected the Indian captain and looked forward to working with him in the future, Chappell sent an email to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Both Ganguly and Chappell were summoned to a BCCI board meeting in which they agreed to work together for the good of the team. Rahul Dravid was appointed captain for the series against Sri Lanka and South Africa after Ganguly was not selected for the opening games due to injury. When the two series got over, Rahul Dravid was asked to continue as skipper.

On November 22, 2005, Ganguly stepped down as captain of Bengal cricket team after being replaced as captain of the Indian Test team. He played in the first two Test matches in the three-Test series against Sri Lanka. However, on December 14, he was controversially dropped, for the third Test at Ahmedabad, to make way for Wasim Jaffer, an opening batsman for Mumbai. Jaffer was picked by the selectors as they wished to build up a player selection pool with sufficient experience to succeed at international level.

Despite this, he retained his A-grade contract from the BCCI, in December 2005.

Following the drop, fans blocked roads and railway tracks in Kolkata, burning effigies of chief selector Kiran More and Indian coach Chappell, and the urban development minister of West Bengal, Asoke Bhattacharya, said Ganguly was a victim of the internal politics of the BCCI. ^[9] Cricinfo editor Sambit Bal wrote in a commentary that this was in all probability ... the end of the road for him. ^[10] However, it was announced on December 25, 2005 that he was selected as part of the Indian team to tour Pakistan. Kiran More cited his experience as the key reason, with Mohammed Kaif being dropped ^[11]. He was in the playing XI in the Lahore and Karachi Tests, but was dropped for the Faisalabad match, and has not been recalled since. He was unable to play in the England home series and the West Indies tour. He was also not selected for the following Tri-series in Sri Lanka. However, he was chosen amongst 30 probables for the ICC Champions Trophy after being left out in the dark for almost close to a year. Ganguly failed in the Challenger Trophy, however, managing less than 30 runs in two games, and so the chances of recall to the ODI side look bleak.

Ganguly later sent an email hitting out at his one time mentor saying that Jagmohan Dalmiya did not deserve to become CAB president as he had played with his career and that Ganguly was a victim of internal politics within the BCCI. This was in the backdrop of the CAB elections which Jagmohan Dalmiya won.

[edit] Comeback

After being dropped from the side for almost eight months, Ganguly was recalled to the Test team for the series against South Africa in December 2006, after an injury to Yuvraj Singh. And after the recall, in his first warm up match against rest of South Africa, he scored fantastic 83 runs when his team was in troublesome position at 69/5. this knock helped India win against rest of South Africa.

He went on to play a crucial knock in the first test match, scoring 51 not out in the first innings in a low scoring game. India went on to win the match, its first win in South African soil for 17 years. Though India ended up losing the next two test matches and thus the series, Ganguly emerged as the top run scorer for India, with an aggregate of 214.

Selected for the one-day team after his successful Test comeback, he started the series against West Indies with a fluent 98, which led to India winning the match. He played his last international ODI before 500 days. After being rested for the third ODI, he again answered his critics with a sparkling 68 in the final ODI to help India win the series 3-1.

[edit] Career Centuries

[edit] Test Cricket

[edit] One-Day Cricket

[edit] Records

[edit] Test

• Scored a century on Test debut
• Scored a century in each of his first two Tests
• Captained India in a record 49 Test matches
• Led India to a record 21 Test wins
• India's most successful Test captain

[edit] ODIs

• Second fastest player to reach 10,000 ODI runs
• Fastest to reach multiples of 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 ODI Runs
• Holds the record, shared with Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for the second highest score by an Indian cricketer in an ODI — 183, against Sri Lanka in 1999.
• Held the record, shared with Sachin Tendulkar, for the highest first wicket partnership for India in a ODI match, 258, against Kenya in 2001. This record was bettered by Sri Lankan opening pair of Jayasuriya and Tharanga in 2006 at Headingly.
• Was involved in the First 300 run ODI partnership with Rahul Dravid
• 6th on the all time list with 30 man of the match awards (Sachin Tendulkar leads with 52 awards in 369 matches)
• He is also the only player to win 4 consecutive man of the match awards in ODIs.
• India's most successful ODI captain
• First Indian to Score a ODI Century Against Australia in Australia

[edit] Career Statistics

[edit] Tests:

• Cumulative Test batting average never fell below 40 runs per innings
• He joined another select brand of 3 batsman who made tons in their 1st two Test innings.
• Sourav was only the 3rd batsman in the world to score a century on debut at Lords.
• His 131 still remains the highest by any batsman on his debut at Lord's.
• Has gotten out on 99 twice in tests only 8 batsman have fallen so.The others are MJK Smith, G Boycott, RB Richardson, JG Wright, MA Atherton, Saleem Malik, GS Blewett

[edit] ODI's

• Second Fastest after Viv Richards to reach 6,000 ODI Runs in 147 Innings and Sachin Tendulkar to 10,000 in 263 Innings
• Cumulative ODI batting average never fell below 40 runs per innings after his 84th Innings

Personal life

Born in a middle class Rajapur Saraswat Brahmins community a sub sect of Gaud Saraswat Brahmins community in Bombay, now known as Mumbai, Tendulkar was named after his family's favourite music director Sachin Dev Burman. His late father Ramesh Tendulkar was a Marathi novelist. He was encouraged to play cricket by his elder brother, Ajit Tendulkar. Sachin Tendulkar married Anjali Tendulkar(nee Mehta), the paediatrician daughter of Gujarati industrialist Anand Mehta, in 1995, some years after they were introduced by mutual friends. They have two children, Sara (born 12 October 1997) and Arjun (born 23 September, 2000). Tendulkar sponsors 200 under-privileged children, every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based NGO associated with his mother-in-law, Annabel Mehta. He is reluctant to speak about this, or other charitable activities, choosing to preserve the sanctity of his personal life despite the overwhelming media interest in him.

[edit] Career

[edit] Early days of cricket

He attended Sharadashram Vidyamandir School where he began his cricketing career under the guidance of his coach and mentor Ramakant Achrekar. While at school, he was involved in unbroken 664-run partnership in a Harris Shield game in 1988 with friend and team mate Vinod Kambli, who also went on to represent India. At the time, this was a record partnership in any form of cricket and in 2006 it was broken by two under-13 batsmen, Mohammad Shahbaz Tumbi and B Manoj Kumar, in a match held at Hyderabad in India.

[edit] Domestic career

In 1988/1989, he scored 100 not-out in his first first-class match for Bombay against Gujarat. At 15 years and 232 days he was then the youngest cricketer to score a century on his first-class dbut.

Sachin Tendulkar is the only player to score a century while making his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy debut.

[edit] International career

Sachin played his first international match against Pakistan in Karachi in 1989, facing the likes of Wasim Akram, Imran Khan, Abdul Qadir and Waqar Younis. He made just 15 runs, being bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made his debut in that match. It was an inauspicious start, but Tendulkar followed it up with his maiden Test fifty a few days later at Faisalabad. 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 tour of New Zealand in which he fell for 98 in the Second Test. John Wright, who later became the coach of India, took the catch that prevented Tendulkar from becoming the youngest centurion in Test cricket. His maiden Test century came in next tour, to England in August 1990 at Old Trafford. Tendulkar further enhanced his development into a world-class batsman during the 1991-1992 tour of Australia that included an unbeaten 148 in Sydney (the first of many battles against Shane Warne who made his debut in the match) and a brilliant century on the fast and bouncy track at Perth. 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.

Tendulkar's performance through the years 1994-1999, coincided with his physical peak, at age 20 through 25. Tendulkar was told to open the batting at Auckland against New Zealand in 1994 ^[2]. He went on to make 82 runs off 49 balls. His first ODI century came on September 9, 1994 against Australia in Sri Lanka at Colombo. It had taken Tendulkar 79 ODIs to score a century.

Tendulkar's rise continued when he was the leading runscorer at the 1996 Cricket World Cup, topping the batting averages whilst scoring two centuries.

This was the beginning of a period at the top of the batting world, culminating in the Australian tour of India in early 1998, scoring three consecutive centuries. These were characterised by a pre-meditated plan to target Australian spinners Shane Warne and Gavin Robertson, to whom he regularly charged down the pitch to drive over the infield. Following the series Australian spinner Shane Warne ruefully joked that he was having nightmares about his Indian nemesis^[3].

A chronic back problem flared up when Pakistan toured India in 1999, with India losing the historic Test at Chepauk despite a gritty century from Tendulkar himself. Worse was to come as Professor Ramesh Tendulkar, Tendulkar's father, died in the middle of the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Tendulkar flew back to India to attend the final rituals of his father, missing the match against Zimbabwe. However, he returned with a bang to the World cup scoring a century (unbeaten 140 off 101 balls) in his very next match against Kenya in Bristol^[4].

Tendulkar, succeeding Mohammad Azharuddin as captain, then led India on a tour of Australia, where the visitors were comprehensively beaten 3-0 ^[5] by the newly-crowned world champions. After another Test series defeat, this time by a 0-2 margin at home against South Africa, Tendulkar resigned, and Sourav Ganguly took over as captain in 2000.

Tendulkar made 673 runs in 11 matches in the 2003 World Cup, helping India reach the final. While Australia retained the trophy that it had won in 1999, Tendulkar was given the Man of the Series award. The drawn series as India toured Australia in 2003-2004 saw Tendulkar making his mark in the last Test of the series, with a double century in Sydney, which was also the last test appearance of one of cricket history's most successful captian Steve Waugh. Tennis elbow then took its toll on Tendulkar, leaving him out of the side for the first two Tests when Australia toured India in 2004. He played a part in the facesaving Indian victory in Mumbai, though Australia had already taken the series 2-1, with the Second Test in Chennai drawn.

On 10 December, 2005, at Feroz Shah Kotla, he delighted fans with a record-breaking 35th Test century, against the Sri Lankans.

On 6 February 2006, Tendulkar scored his 39th ODI hundred, in a match against Pakistan. He followed with a run-a-ball 42 in the second ODI against Pakistan on February 11, 2006, and then a 95 in hostile, seaming conditions on 13 February, 2006 in Lahore, which set up an Indian victory.

On 19 March 2006, after scoring an unconvincing 1 off 21 balls against England in the first innings of the third Test in his home ground, Wankhede, Tendulkar was booed off the ground by a section of the crowd^[6], the first time that he has ever faced such flak. While cheered on when he came for his second innings, Tendulkar, was the top scorer in the second innings ^[7] and yet was to end the three-Test series without a single half-century to his credit, and news of a shoulder operation raised more questions about his longevity.

Tendulkar was operated upon for his injured shoulder forcing him to skip the tour of West Indies in 2006.

On 23 May 2006, after deciding not to undergo a scheduled fitness test, he announced he would miss the tour of the Caribbean for the Test series. However he agreed to play 5 games for Lashings World XI in order to regain fitness for a possible August comeback. He had scored 155, 147(retired), 98, 101(retired) & 105 in the 5 matches for Lashings XI with strike rate of well above 100 and was the top scorer in all the matches.

Also in his first Twenty20 match with international opposition, although unofficial, Tendulkar hit 50 not out off 21 deliveries to blast the International XI to 123 after 10 overs against the Pakistan XI.

However as of July,2006 The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that the longest-serving international cricketer has overcome his injury problem following a rehabilitation programme and is available for selection.

He then came for the DLF cup in Malaysia and became the only Indian batsman to shine. In his most recent comeback match, against West Indies on 14th September 2006, Tendulkar responded to his critics who believed that his career was inexorably sliding with his 40th ODI century. Though he scored 141*, West Indies won the rain-affected match by the D/L method. In January 2007 Tendulkar scored a 76-ball century against the West Indies which makes it his 41st ODI century. He reached a hundred on the last ball of the Indian innings. Tendulkar now has 18 more ODI tons than Sanath Jayasuriya who is second on the list of ODI century-makers ^[8].

Wisden named Tendulkar one of the Cricketers of the Year in 1997, the first calendar year in which he scored 1,000 Test runs. He repeated the feat in 1999, 2001, and 2002. Tendulkar also holds the record for scoring 1,000 ODI runs in a calendar year. He has done it six times - 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003. In 1998 he made 1,894 ODI runs, still the record for ODI runs by any batsman in any given calendar year.

[edit] Bowling

While not a regular bowler, Sachin Tendulkar has taken 38 wickets in 135 Tests and 146 wickets in 377 ODIs. He often bowls when two batsmen have been batting together for a long period, and can often be a useful partnership breaker. Though his Test bowling average is above 50 and his ODI bowling average above 40, he is considered ^[9] as the man with the Golden arm ^[10] who breaks partnerships. ^[11].

On more than one occasion ^[12], he has had a strong influence on an Indian victory with his bowling. Notable among his bowling exploits are:

• 5 wicket haul against Australia^[13] at Kochi in the 1997-98 Series . Set 269 runs to win, Australia were cruising comfortably at 203/3 in the 31st over. Sachin turned the match for India taking wickets of Michael Bevan, Steve Waugh, Darren Lehmann, Tom Moody and Damien Martyn for just 32 runs in 10 overs.
• Final over control against South Africa in 1993 Hero-cup semifinals. South Africa needed 6 runs to win the match in the final over. Sachin, bowling 3 dot balls in that over, conceded just 3 runs to help India win the match and reach the Finals of the tournament. ^[14]
• Performance of 4/34 in 10 overs against West Indies ^[15] in Sharjah where the Windies were bowled out for 145.
• He single handedly won the ICC 1998 QuarterFinals at Dhaka to pave way for India's entry into the Semifinals, when he took 4 Australian wickets after scoring 141 runs in just 128 balls.
• Tendulkar took three wickets on the final day of the famous Kolkata Test against Australia in 2001, which India won after following on, 274 runs behind on the first innings. Tendulkar took the key wickets of Matthew Hayden — who made a hundred in the previous Test at Mumbai and a double century in the next — and Adam Gilchrist, another centurion at Mumbai.

[edit] 2006

Tendulkar hitting a six off Sri Sreesanth

Tendulkar has missed four Tests and eleven ODIs through injury in 2006. However, he has done well in the ODIs that he has played, hitting two centuries and two fifties. He was the top scorer in 6 of the past 11 matches he has played this year. His Test form has been uncharacteristically poor, having failed to reach a single century this year, and only 1 test fifty. In fact, Tendulkar has not hit a half-century in his last 11 innings - the longest he has gone without reaching fifty since making his Test debut in 1989. The longest he has gone without a Test hundred is 13 innings. In the He top scored in the second One day International against South Africa.

He has scored at least one half century in a test match every year, since 1992.

[edit] Criticism

Of late, as Wisden has noted, Tendulkar has not been as aggressive or cavalier as he was in his younger days. Expert opinion is divided on whether this is due to his increasing years or the lingering after-effects of injuries over 17 years at the highest level. He somewhat silenced these doubts by scoring a comeback hundred and a half-century in Malaysia tri-series in September 2006.

Despite his record of scoring the most Test centuries, none of Tendulkar's innings found a place in the Wisden 100, a statistics-based list released by Wisden in 2001 of the 100 "greatest Test batting performances". Wisden stated that most of his best performances had come in draws and defeats, and so received a much lower weighting as they did not majorly contribute to a victory^[16].

[edit] Controversies

His two tenures as captain of the Indian cricket team were not particularly sucessful. During his second run, after constantly complaining that the national selectors weren't giving him the team he wanted, he resigned after a disastrous tour of Australia where India lost 0-3 in the Tests and managed to win only one of 8 ODIs.Incidentally, he was named man of the series for the Test matches.

During India's historic tour of Pakistan in 2004, he went public with his disappointment in not being able to score his 200 against Pakistan, when Rahul Dravid the acting captain of India declared the match with 16 overs remaining on Day 2 when Sachin was still on 194 NO. The controversy was so huge that it completely overshadowed one of Indian cricket's landmark innings by a young Virender Sehwag - a score of 309 which is the highest ever by an Indian in Tests. Many former cricketers ^[17] commented ^[18] that Dravid's declaration was in bad taste. The media noted at the time that the decision had apparently been made by Ganguly ^[19], and Ganguly himself later admitted that it had been a mistake, ^[20] the wording of the statement indicating that it had not been Dravid's call.

[edit] Famous innings

[edit] Test cricket

^[*] Tendulkar rates this innings of 114, played on a bouncy WACA pitch when he was only 18 years old, as his best batting performance.

[edit] One-day cricket

⁺WC-World Cup

[edit] Achievements

[edit] Test cricket

Highlights of Tendulkar's Test career include:

• Rated as the second best batsman of all time, after Don Bradman, by Wisden ^[1][22]
• Highest number of Test centuries (35), overtaking Sunil Gavaskar's record (34) on 10 December 2005 vs Sri Lanka in Delhi.
• Played in the highest number of Cricket Grounds - he has played Test Cricket on 52 different grounds, ahead of Azharuddin (48), Kapil Dev (47), Inzamam-ul-Haq (46) and Wasim Akram (45).
• He is the fastest to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket history. He holds this record along with Brian Lara. Both of them achieved this feat in 195 innings.
• 4th highest tally of runs in Test cricket (10,668)
• Career Average 54.70 - Has the highest average among those who have scored over 10,000 Test runs
• Second Indian to make over 10,000 runs in Test matches.
• Has 38 Test wickets (6 Jan 2007)
• Fourth fastest player to reach 9,000 runs (Rahul Dravid made 9000 runs in 176 innings, Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting made 9000 in 177 innings, Sachin in 179.)
• As of January 03, 2007 Sachin Tendulkar(5751) edged past Brian Lara's(5736) world record of scoring maximum runs in tests away from home. Tendulkar achieved this feat in 75 away Test matches while Brian Lara took 66 away Tests. He averages 54.25 in away Tests so far.

[edit] ODI

Highlights of Tendulkar's ODI career include:

• Most runs (14,728 as of 31st January, 2007)
• Most centuries (41)
• Played most number of ODIs (378), (as of 31st January, 2007).
• Played most number of consecutive ODI matches (185)^[23]
• Most Man of the Match (53) awards^[24]
• Only player to have over 100 innings of 50+ runs as of October, 2006
• Third most number of Fifties (75). Inzamam-ul-Haq (83) and Rahul Dravid (76) are the only other batsmen who have scored more Fifties than Tendulkar. ^[25]
• Appeared on the most grounds (90 different grounds)
• Most ODI runs by any batsman in any given calendar year - 1,894 ODI runs in 1998.
• Most Centuries by a player in one year - 9 ODI centuries in 1998
• Most centuries vs. Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
• Holds the record for scoring 1,000 ODI runs in a calendar year. He has done it six times - 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003.
• Highest batting average among batsmen with over 10,000 ODI runs (as of October 2006)
• First cricketer and fastest cricketer to cross 10,000-run mark, 11,000-run mark, 12,000-run mark, 13,000 run-mark and 14,000 run-mark in ODIs
• Only cricketer to cross 14,000-run mark in ODIs
• Over 100 wickets (146 as of January 30th, 2007)
• One of only two players to pass 10,000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODIs (Sanath Jayasuriya the other)
• Highest individual score among Indian batsmen (186* against New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1999)
• Batting through the innings (50 overs) on two occasions.

[edit] World Cup

• Most runs (1,732 at an average of 59.72) in World Cup Cricket History
• 673 runs in 2003 World Cup, highest by any player in a single Cricket World Cup
• Player Of The Tournament in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

[edit] Miscellaneous

• Tendulkar was the first batsman in history to score over 50 centuries in international cricket. In fact, he has now scored 76 (35 in Tests, 41 in ODIs).
• Tendulkar was the first overseas cricketer to play for Yorkshire CCC in 1993, in more than 100 years of the club's history.
• Shane Warne famously remarked after the Australian tour of India, and then Sharjah in 1998, that his nightmares are full of "Sachin coming, dancing down the track and lofting me over for yet another six !".
• Matthew Hayden once said that,"If cricket is a religion in India, then the god of the religion is none other than Sachin Tendulkar".^{[citation needed]}
• In November 2006, Time magazine named Tendulkar as one of the Asian Heroes. ^[26]
• The current India Poised campaign run by The Times of India has nominated him as the Face of New India next to the likes of Amartya Sen and Mahatma Gandhi among others.

[edit] Man of the Match awards

[edit] 10 Awards in Test cricket

#	Date	Against	Venue
1	August 9, 1990	England	Old Trafford
2	February 11, 1993	England	Chidambaram Stadium
3	October 25, 1995	New Zealand	Chidambaram Stadium
4	March 6, 1998	Australia	Chidambaram Stadium
5	January 28, 1999	Pakistan	Chidambaram Stadium
6	October 29, 1999	New Zealand	Sardar Patel Stadium
7	December 26, 1999	Australia	Melbourne Cricket Ground
8	February 24, 2000	South Africa	Wankhede Stadium
9	October 30, 2002	West Indies	Eden Gardens
10	January 2, 2004	Australia	Sydney Cricket Ground

[edit] 52 Awards in ODI

#	Date	Against	Venue
1	1990-91	Srilanka	Pune
2	1991-92	West Indies	Sharjah
3	1991-92	South Africa	Kolkata
4	1991-92	West Indies	Melbourne
5	1991-92	Pakistan	Sydney
6	1991-92	Zimbabwe	Hamilton, New Zealand
7	1993-94	New Zealand	Auckland
8	1994	Australia	Colombo
9	1994-95	New Zealand	Vadodara
10	1994-95	New Zealand	Delhi
11	1994-95(Wills World Series Final)	West Indies	Kolkata
12	1994-95 (Pepsi Asia Cup)	Srilanka	Sharjah
13	March 16, 2004	Pakistan	Rawalpindi
14	July 21, 2004	Bangladesh	Sinhalese Sports Club Ground
15	September 14, 2006	West Indies	Kuala Lumpur[27]
16	January 2007	West Indies	Vadodara

[edit] Trivia

• Tendulkar has been seen taking his Ferrari 360 Modena for late-night drives in Mumbai. (Gifted by Fiat through Michael Schumacher, the car became notorious when Tendulkar was given customs exemption; Fiat paid the dues to end the controversy.)
• During India's 1999-2000 tour to Australia, he was declared out LBW after ducking and being hit by bouncer that kept low, which lead commentators to coin the term "shoulder before wicket".^[28][29]
• Sachin Tendulkar was the first batsman to have been declared run out by a third umpire in 1992 against South Africa in South Africa.
• Tendulkar is ambidexterous. He writes with his left hand but bats & bowls right-handed.
• During his early days as a schoolboy cricketer he went to the MRF pace academy to train as a pace bowler but was sent back home.
• Owns a restaurant, Tendulkar's in Colaba, Mumbai. Tendulkar's is one of India's very few personality-themed restaurants.
• On December 4, 2006, Tendulkar was featured in a question on the American game show Jeopardy! The clue was "Sachin Tendulkar of India is a leading bowler in this sport."^[30]

check this link:

http://cricketworldcup.indya.com/event/teams/india.htm