Sachin Tendulkar, the greatest batter to have ever played cricket, made his one-day international debut on this day (December 18) in 1989 against Pakistan in Gujranwala. 34 years ago, after Tendulkar played his first match, few would have expected him to make the kind of mark he did on the sport.
Sachin Tendulkar finished his career with 18426 runs from 463 ODIs including 49 hundreds and and 96 half-centuries.
Sachin Tendulkar would go on to become the leading run-scorer in one-day internationals and he held the record for most ODI hundreds for years until he was overtaken by Virat Kohli in the recently concluded 2023 Cricket World Cup. Kohli, who idolises Tendulkar, became the first batter to score 50 hundreds in ODIs as the Master Blaster cheered on from the stands of the Wankhede Stadium, which recently installed a statue of the great man.
In his ODI debut against Pakistan, Tendulkar faced up to a star-studded bowling line-up which comprised of Wasim Akram, Imran Khan, Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed. Batting at No.5, Tendulkar was dismissed for a two-ball duck. And guess who got his wicket? The dangerous Waqar Younis, whose stature would also grow over the next decade alonside Tendulkar’s.
Over the next few years, Sachin Tendulkar carved a niche for himself and by 1992, he was promoted to open the innings and he responded with a fiery against New Zealand in Dunedin. He finished his international career with 100 hundreds but it wasn’t until the September of 1994, nearly 5 years after his ODI debut that he actually got his first hundred in the 50-over format. Tendulkar had promised to achieve that milestone several times previously but he had fallen short often.
As Sachin Tendulkar made a name for himself, bowlers around the world began to fear his technique. He dealt with Wasim Akram, Allan Donald, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne with the disdain few in that era could even dream of. In 1998, Tendulkar played two of the most iconic knocks in ODIs and the one in the final to win the Coca Cola Trophy against Australia will forever be etched in the memory of cricket fans.
In 2010, Sachin Tendulkar became the first male cricketer to score a double hundred in one-day internationals. Virender Sehwag was the next Indian batter to get there while Rohit Sharma has hit 3 of them! Ishan Kishan scored a double century against Bangladesh last year while Shubman Gill became the latest Indian to enter the club.
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