On this day, batting great Sachin Tendulkar arrived at the biggest stage on international level 31 years ago. The 16-year-old Tendulkar made his international debut against Pakistan in a Test match in Karachi, where he locked horns with some of the fierce bowlers of world cricket like Imran Khan and Wasim Akram.

The Little Master didn’t look back in life after that game and amassed a total of 34,357‬ runs in international cricket to earn the ‘God’strature in the game. Tendulkar played cricket for 25 years and walked off the game with almost every batting record from most ODI and Test runs to centuries in the respective formats, he still tops every list.

Tendulkar went on to play 200 Tests, the most by any player in the history of the game, scoring 15,921 runs to his name, including 51 centuries. In 463 ODIs, Tendulkar slammed 18,426 runs including 49 tons. The Master Blaster ended his career with 100 international centuries. He also played one T20I match against South Africa in 2006 in which he scored 10 runs.

The things didn’t well as planned for Tendulkar, as he was dismissed 15 runs by another debutant Waqar Younis against Pakistan on his debut. In the fourth match of the same series, the Little Master showed the whole world why he was chosen to represent India at a very young age. It was a tense game, with India trying to save the game as Tendulkar was batting alongside Navjot Singh Sadhu in the middle and a sharp bouncer from Waqar hit the 16-year-old. There was a deep cut and Sachin started bleeding, which left him dazed. The young Sachin stood up in a fraction of second, put some water on his face and slammed the next ball for four.

Waqar went on to play 87 Test matches for Pakistan in which he picked 373 wickets. While in ODIs, the right-arm-pacer was considered one of the bests of his time with 416 wickets in just 216 games for the Pakistan team.

Tendulkar won the ODI World Cup for India in his sixth attempt at his home ground Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai in 2011. While Waqar missed the chance to get his hands on the coveted trophy as he was not part of Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup Squad, who lifted the lone WC trophy for them.

It was like a complete circle of his cricketing career when Tendulkar went out to bat on the same date, when he made his debut, on November 15, 2013. The Master Blaster played his last Test match against the West Indies at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. In his last international innings, Tendulkar managed 74 runs before he became the priced scalp of Narsingh Deonarine. India, under MS Dhoni’s leadership, went on to win the match by an innings and 126 runs, gave a perfect farewell to the greatest batsman to ever play the game.