NEW DELHI — In an era of prolific run scorers, Sachin Tendulkar will be remembered as the most accomplished batsman of his generation. The “Little Master,” as the diminutive 1.65 meter (5-foot-5) Tendulkar is widely known, has plundered runs all over the world and dominated the two formats of cricket prevailing during his time. He's the closest thing cricket has ever seen to the great Sir Donald Bradman, the Australian who famously averaged 99.94 per test innings in the 1930s and 40s and has no peers in the game. After almost a quarter of a century, and rarely putting a foot wrong in the eyes of millions of Indian fans who revered him in a country where cricket overshadows almost everything else, the 40-year-old Tendulkar has decided he'll retire after an upcoming Test series against the West Indies. His 200th Test match will be his last. “All my life, I have had a dream of playing cricket for India,” Tendulkar said as he announced his planned retirement. “I have been living this dream every day for the last 24 years. It's hard for me to imagine a life without playing cricket because it's all I have ever done since I was 11 years old.” His compact defense and superb drives helped him dominate during a phase when the game transformed from stately to frantic. Tendulkar came on the scene when limited-overs cricket was overtaking tests in popularity, and leaves when the Twenty20 format is still early in its evolution. It was Tendulkar's ability to bounce back repeatedly from lapses of form and his ability to adapt to different conditions and situations that helped him finish with most major batting records to his name. Tendulkar is the most prolific batsman in international cricket history with 15,837 runs in 198 tests and 18,426 runs in 463 one-day internationals. He also holds the record for most centuries in tests (51) and ODIs (49). Tendulkar learned to carry the weight of expectations early on, after making his international debut during a testing tour in 1989 at the age of 16 against a Pakistan lineup containing the great Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in its bowling attack. There were early comparisons with contemporaries such as Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-Haq. Then the ultimate flattery, with Bradman saying that watching Tendulkar was like watching himself bat. “I asked my wife to have a look at him because ... I never saw myself play but I feel that this fella is playing much the same as I used to play,” Bradman was quoted as saying before he died a decade ago. “She had a look at the TV and said ‘Yes, there is a similarity between the two.'” — AP
