'Reason for watching, playing cricket' - Twitter overflows with wishes as Sachin Tendulkar celebrates his 49th birthday

Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, who has been deemed as one of the greatest batters to have played the game, celebrates his 49th birthday today (April 24) and the wishes seemed to pour in from around the world. Popularly called the Master Blaster, Tendulkar started his international career way back in 1989 at the age of 16, and served the Indian cricket for almost 24 years until he announced his retirement from international cricket in 2013 at the age of 40.

Tendulkar was more than just a player in the country, and he had a brilliant fan base around the world. The crowd chanting ‘Sachin Sachin’ from the stands was a familiar sight in his era and such was the impact he had created in the cricketing fraternity. He had a phenomenal career across both the Test and ODI formats for India and there was hardly a list of records that did not include Tendulkar’s name in it.

In fact, Tendulkar had rewritten the way Indian cricket used to be in the past and he never was intimated while facing the greatest bowlers of the game like Wasim Akram, Glenn Mcgrath, Shoaib Akthar, and Curtley Ambrose. His technique was near to perfection and he played an immense part in India’s World Cup triumph in 2011 as well which turned out to be the last ICC event.

Sachin Tendulkar’s stunning records in international cricket

As far as his records are concerned, Tendulkar was far ahead of every other cricketer in terms of numbers and it might not be anywhere easy to get near to him. The right-hander has scored more than 34,000 international runs in 664 games across formats, the most by any batter, and became the first-ever cricketer to score 100 centuries in international cricket. He also was the first ever to break the barrier of an individual score of 200 in ODIs.

Widely regarded as the “God of cricket”, Tendulkar was honoured with the Bharat Ratna in 2014, the highest Indian civilian award for his services to Indian cricket. He is currently with the Mumbai Indians in IPL 2022 as a mentor post his retirement from the game.

Here’s how the Twitter reacted to Tendulkar’s birthday