New Delhi: Sachin Tendulkar, the god of the cricketing world has turned 42. He might have missed many of his birthdays while serving for cricket on the field, but this time after 16-months of his retirement lets look back to some of his unknown facts on as well off the field.
* Sachin is named after Sachin Dev Burman
*Â Sachin initially wanted to be a professional tennis player and John McEnroe was his idol. Even his hair style in the earlier days resembled the one McEnroe had.
*Â During a vacation, Sachin fell down from a tree, and as a punishment for his antics, his brother Ajit registered him for a cricket coaching class.
*Â Once he started playing cricket, Sachin wanted to be a fast bowler. He visited the MRF pace academy in 1987 but was rejected by the head coach Dennis Lillee who asked him to concentrate on his batting.
*Â He got a pair of pads from Sunil Gavaskar as a gift when he was 15. He used the same pads when he made his international test debut against Pakistan in 1989, youngest Indian to do so.
*Â He is the only player to score a century on his debuts in all three Ranji, Irani and Duleep trophies.
* In 1991, he became the youngest player to score a century on Australian soil when he scored 148 at Sydney.
* He was the first batsman to be given out by a third umpire when he was run-out against SA on the day 2 of the first test at Durban in 1992.
* Throughout his test career, he has been stumped only once by Ashley Giles in the 3rd test vs England in 2001.
* In 2010, Sachin became the first person with no aviation background to receive Indian Air Force’s honorary rank of Group Captain.
*Â Sachin sponsors 200 under-privileged children every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai based NGO.