Woh sirf ek cricketer nahi, duniya hai meri: Virender Sehwag on Sachin Tendulkar’s birthday

Sachin Tendulkar is celebrating his 45th birthday on Tuesday and Virender Sehwag is leading the good wishes for the ‘God of cricket’

cricket Updated: Apr 24, 2018 12:50 IST
Virender Sehwag andSachin Tendulkar during a practice session. Tendulkar is celebrating his 45th birthday on April 24.(HT Photo)

Noted cricket writer the late Peter Roebuck had once written this about Sachin Tendulkar. “On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt at one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing a century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. The genius can stop time in India!” (IPL 2018 - full coverage)

The anecdote sums up the phenomenon that Sachin Tendulkar became during his cricket career that lasted 24 years. And though more than four years have passed since he retired from international cricket, he continues to rule the hearts and minds of cricket crazy people from this country.

On Tuesday, as the cricket genius turned 45, wishes poured in for him from all quarters with a host of present and past sportspersons taking to Twitter to pay their tributes to the man who is dubbed ‘god of cricket’.

Leading the birthday tributes for Tendulkar was his protege and former teammate Virender Sehwag, who highlighted as to how cricket fans including him built their lives around the Mumbai great. Sehwag also thanked Tendulkar for inspiring players like him to bat fearlessly.

Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman with Virender Sehwag at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium in Hyderabad on April 5, 2017. (BCCI)

“Woh sirf ek Cricketer nahi, Duniya hai Meri ! aur bahuton ki. Many more happy returns of the day to a man who could stop time in India (literally) .Thank you for making the Cricket Bat such a great weapon, which later many like me could also use. #HappyBirthdaySachin,” Sehwag wrote in his tweet.

Between 1989 and 2013, Tendulkar played 200 Tests and 463 ODIs for India scoring 100 international hundreds, which was an unprecedented feat. With a tally of 15,921 Test runs and 18,426 ODI runs, he is also the highest run getters in both forms of cricket.

For a country which is full of diversity, Tendulkar’s batting acted as a unifying object and when he batted, people from all castes, religions and regions prayed for him. His success brought joy to all. Cricketer Suresh Raina underlined the role Tendulkar played in unifying India in his Twitter post.

“To the man who united a billion Indians and brought a smile to their faces every time he walked out to bat. A dream that he turned into reality. Sachin is an emotion.. Sachin is a phenomena! Happy birthday, Paaji!! @sachin_rt,” Raina wrote on Twitter.

Among other who also hailed Tendulkar were former cricketers VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, RP Singh, boxer Vijender Singh, wrestler Geeta Phogat and shuttler Sikki Reddy.

A distinctive feature of Tendulkar’s popularity is that that he is known by people from even those parts of world where cricket is not that popular.

Take for instance, this quote from former American President Barack Obama, “I don’t know about cricket but still I watch cricket to see Sachin play..Not b’coz I love his play its b’coz I want to know the reason why my country’s production goes down by 5 percent when he’s in batting.”

Here we have compiled some of the birthday wishes for Sachin Tendulkar on Twitter:

On Tuesday, French ambassador to India, Alexandre Ziegler, also wished Tendulkar saying how he has grown to like Tendulkar during his two years of stay in India.