Sachin Tendulkar has been named Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year for 2010, crowning a golden month for “the little master” which also saw him play a starring role in India’s World Cup triumph.
Tendulkar’s honour from the cricketing bible means India have bagged the title three years running following the back-to-back awards for Virender Sehwag.
It follows another prolific run-scoring year for the 37-year-old, who rattled off more than 1,500 Test runs including seven Test hundreds, including a record 50th overall, in 2010.
Tendulkar is also on the brink of hitting 100 international centuries, currently on 99.
“Wisden acknowledges his greatness by naming him as the Leading Cricketer in the World for 2010,” read Tendulkar’s citation in Wisden.
Tendulkar’s batting also saw him earn a spot in Wisden’s 2010 Test XI, along with Sehwag and Bangladesh’s Tamim Iqbal.
Other players to feature in the World XI were England off-spinner Graeme Swann and fast-bowler James Anderson. However for the first time, no Australian has been included in the all-star line-up. The Wisden list did not include any Pakistani player this year amidst the spot-fixing scandal engulfing the team.
The cricketer of the year was instituted in Wisden 2004. The previous winners have been Australians Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne, Andrew Flintoff of England, Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and South African Jacques Kallis before Sehwag bagged the back-to-back titles.
Tendulkar, who made his international debut as a 16-year-old in 1989, made the most runs in Test cricket in 2010 at an average of 78. In February he scored the first double-century in ODIs; in December, he became the first man to score 50 Test hundreds.
It is the first time Tendulkar has won the award since it started, although Wisden 2007 identified him as the player who would have won this award in 1998 had it been devised then.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2011.
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