'My inspiration to play the sport' - Rohit Sharma on Sachin Tendulkar's greatness as legend celebrates his 50th birthday

After scoring several fifties on the cricket pitch, legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is celebrating his first half-century off the pitch as the ‘Master Blaster’ turned 50 years old on Monday, April 24. Wishes have been pouring in for Tendulkar from all over the world for inspiring generations to pick up the sport.

All the members of the current Indian team admire Tendulkar and aspire to take Indian cricket to great heights as he did throughout his career. One such person who has looked up to the ‘Little Master’ right from his childhood is the Indian captain Rohit Sharma. Talking about his idol in the book titled ‘Sachin@50’, which has been launched to commemorate Tendulkar’s greatness, Sharma said that growing up with Tendulkar was second to God for him. 

“Growing up in Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar was second to God for me. He was a part of my growing up. My inspiration to play the sport has made me what I am. Cricket in our household meant Sachin Tendulkar. He was the yardstick in everything that we did.  If you wanted to be the best, you needed to try and bat like Sachin Tendulkar. He was the defacto coaching manual. And then, to be able to play with him meant the world to me,” said Rohit in Sachin@50.

Having made his international debut in 2007, Sharma got the pleasure of playing with his idol in the final stages of the latter's career. The right-handed batter even made his Test debut during the last series of Tendulkar against West Indies in November 2013.

Sharma went on to score hundreds in both matches and was awarded ‘Player of the Series’ for finishing as the highest run-scorer of the series with 288 runs to his name at an average of 288. The current Indian captain further emulated his idol’s feat of scoring a double hundred in ODI cricket as he reached the landmark against Australia on November 2, 2013, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Rohit Sharma captained Tendulkar and won IPL and Champions League T20

Sharma even captained Tendulkar in the IPL season 2013 and led Mumbai Indians to their first IPL title, giving his idol a fairytale farewell. He further led Mumbai Indians to title victory in the Champions League T20 the same year before Tendulkar bid adieu to franchise cricket. 

Furthermore, Sharma even levelled Tendulkar’s record of most hundreds in ODI World Cup history (6) as he had a dream run in the 2019 World Cup scoring 648 runs with five hundreds to his name. The Indian opener came mighty close to breaking Tendulkar’s record of most runs in a single edition of the ODI World Cup (673 runs).