Mumbai: Legendary former batter Sachin Tendulkar, whose records and impact on international cricket have stood the test of time, will be conferred with the BCCI’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Board’s annual gala here Saturday.
Overall, Tendulkar will be the 31st recipient of the award, which was instituted in 1994 in the honour of India’s first captain Col. C K Nayudu.
The 51-year-old Tendulkar, who played 664 international games for India, holds the record for the highest number of Test and ODI runs in the history of the game.
“Yes, he will be the recipient of the C K Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2024,” a Board source told PTI.
Tendulkar’s 200 Test and 463 ODI appearances are also the highest by any player in the history of the game. He amassed 15,921 Test runs besides a whopping 18,426 in ODIs.
However, he played only one T20 International in his stellar career.
In 2023, the lifetime honour was bestowed on former India head coach Ravi Shastri and wicket-keeping great Farokh Engineer.
Considered the greatest batter of his era, Tendulkar was not just a prolific run-scorer but also an icon of the game, who played for more than two decades after debuting as a 16-year-old in a 1989 Test against Pakistan.
The well-documented and numerous batting records apart, Tendulkar was also a key member of India’s 2011 World Cup-winning team, which was his record sixth and last appearance in the showpiece.
At his peak, the diminutive right-hander could bring the nation to a standstill by simply walking out to bat.
His dismissal was the most sought after among opposition teams, who did not hesitate to say that Tendulkar was the only Indian batter who could intimidate them.
Tendulkar’s emergence in the Indian cricketing scene happened at the same time when India witnessed economic liberalisation and the curly-haired genius became a favourite of corporate India, thanks to a never-seen-before emotional connect with people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
When a 17-year-old Tendulkar scored a hundred at Perth on a treacherously bouncy WACA track, lot of teenagers found a hero.
When he scored the ‘Desert Storm hundred’ at Sharjah against Australia in 1998, a middle-aged man somewhere wished that he was his son.
When he withstood pain and nearly took India to a victory against Pakistan in Chennai in 1999 and broke down, a billion hearts broke into pieces.
When he shed tears of joy while hugging Mahendra Singh Dhoni on April 2, 2011, a nation shared his happiness.
And in November 2013, when he left the field in front of his adoring fans in Mumbai, thousands lost cried hoping for him to continue.
If Sunil Gavaskar brought respect for Indian cricket with his astute mind and artistic defence, Tendulkar, with his dazzling array of strokes, stood for style and aura.
They were the social symbols of their time.
BCCI didn’t become a rich cricket board just overnight.
It’s first blue chip share certainly was Tendulkar, which paid them handsome dividends throughout.
Tendulkar was that middle-class success story, which led to a “successful marriage” of India Inc. and Indian cricket.
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that for cricket historians, there will be distinct eras which need to be chronicled namely – ‘BT’ which is Before Tendulkar, ‘DT’ which will be ‘During Tendulkar’ and ‘PT’ that is Post Tendulkar.
Tendulkar always united India with his craftsmanship creating organic love in the pre-social media days free of toxicity.
His humility made him ever more endearing.
Tendulkar will be bestowed with the honour but it is the establishment that should feel privileged that they perhaps had the greatest servant of Indian cricket for 24 years.
There could easily be more followed cricketers in India but when it comes to unadulterated love, no one will ever surpass the ‘Master’. He owns that love.