Tendulkar played as a youngster with his brother, Ajit, for Sahitya Sahawas society’s cricket team at Bandra East. Ajit is credited by Sachin for playing a pivotal role in his life. Ramakant Achrekar was impressed with Tendulkar's talent and advised him to shift his schooling to Sharadashram Vidyamandir (English) High School, a school at Dadar which had a dominant cricket team and had produced many notable cricketers. Prior to this, Tendulkar had attended the Indian Education Society's New English School in Bandra (East).
He was also coached under the guidance of Achrekar at Shivaji Park in the mornings and evenings.Tendulkar would practice for hours on end in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one-rupee coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. If Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Tendulkar now considers the 13 coins he won then as some of his most prized possessions.
In 1987, at the age of 14, he attended the MRF Pace Foundation in Madras (now Chennai) to train as a fast bowler, but Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee, who took a world record 355 Test wickets, was unimpressed, suggesting that Tendulkar focus on his batting instead. On 20 January 1987, he also turned out as substitute for Imran Khan's side in an exhibition game at Brabourne Stadium in Bombay, to mark the golden jubilee of Cricket Club of India. A couple of months later, former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads and consoled him to not get disheartened for not getting the Bombay Cricket Association's "Best junior cricket award" (He was 14 years that time). "It was the greatest source of encouragement for me," Tendulkar said nearly 20 years later after surpassing Gavaskar's world record of 34 Test centuries.
On 14 November 1987, Tendulkar was selected to represent Bombay in the Ranji Trophy, India's premier domestic First-class cricket tournament, for the 1987–88 season. However, he was not selected for the final eleven in any of the matches, though he was often used as a substitute fielder.He narrowly missed out on playing alongside his idol Gavaskar, who had retired from all forms of cricket after the 1987 Cricket World Cup. A year later, on 11 December 1988, aged 15 years and 232 days, Tendulkar made his debut for Bombay against Gujarat at home and scored 100 not out in that match, making him the youngest Indian to score a century on debut in first-class cricket.
His first double century (204*) was for Mumbai while playing against the visiting Australian team at the Brabourne Stadium in 1998. He is the only player to score a century on debut in all three of his domestic first-class tournaments (the Ranji, Irani, and Duleep Trophies). Another double century was an innings of 233* against Tamil Nadu in the semi-finals of the 2000 Ranji Trophy, which he regards as one of the best innings of his career.
Raj Singh Dungarpur is credited for the selection of Tendulkar for the Indian tour of Pakistan in late 1989,[62] after one first class season.[63] The Indian selection committee had shown interest in selecting Tendulkar for the tour of the West Indies held earlier that year, but eventually did not select him, as they did not want him to be exposed to the dominant fast bowlers of the West Indies so early in his career. Tendulkar made his Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi in November 1989 aged 16 years and 205 days. He made 15 runs, being bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made his debut in that match, but was noted for how he handled numerous blows to his body at the hands of the Pakistani pace attack.[64] In the fourth and final Test in Sialkot, he was hit on the nose by a bouncer bowled by Younis, but he declined medical assistance and continued to bat even as he gushed blood from it.
Tendulkar scored his 100th international hundred on 16 March 2012, at Mirpur against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup.He became the first person in history to achieve this feat, which was also his first ODI hundred against Bangladesh. He said "It's been a tough phase for me ... I was not thinking about the milestone, the media started all this, wherever I went, the restaurant, room service, everyone was talking about the 100th hundred. Nobody talked about my 99 hundreds. It became mentally tough for me because nobody talked about my 99 hundreds."Despite Tendulkar's century, India failed to win the match against Bangladesh, losing by 5 wickets.
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