Sachin Tendulkar announces retirement from ODIs, wants to focus on Test cricket:
Putting an end to his 23-year old one-day career, master blaster Sachin Tendulkar today announced retirement from the 50-over format.
Sachin's announcement came on a day that the Indian team for the two T20s and three ODIs with Pakistan, to be played starting next week, is being decided. Sachin has already stopped playing T20s.
The Board of control for cricket in India (BCCI) released Sachin's statement on Sunday morning. It read, "I have decided to retire from the One Day format of the game. I feel blessed to have fulfilled the dream of being part of a World Cup wining Indian team. The preparatory process to defend the World Cup in 2015 should begin early and in right earnest. I would like to wish the team all the very best for the future. I am eternally grateful to all my well wishers for their unconditional support and love over the years."
"I have decided to retire from the One-Day format of the game. I feel blessed to have fulfilled the dream of being part of a World Cup wining Indian team. The preparatory process to defend the World Cup in 2015 should begin early and in right earnest," the 39-year-old said in a statement released by the BCCI today.
"I would like to wish the team all the very best for the future. I am eternally grateful to all my well wishers for their unconditional support and love over the years," he added.
Tendulkar, considered the most complete batsman in modern cricket and one who was considered next only to the legendary Sir Donald Bradman, retires from the ODI format at the top of the run-getters' list.
Tendulkar goes out after amassing 18,426 runs in 463 one-dayers at an average of 44.83. The diminutive right-hander has an astonishing 49 hundreds in the format, including a double hundred -- the first in this form of the game.
Tendulkar made his ODI debut against Pakistan way back in 1989 and interestingly he is quitting the scene just ahead of another series against the arch-rivals.
The Mumbaikar, who made himself unavailable for Twenty20 after playing just one game in 2006, will now remain active in only the Test arena.
The brightest moment of his ODI career came last year when he finally became part of a World Cup winning Indian team after five previous appearances.
Tendulkar's Test records are as awe-inspiring. The right-hander has 15,645 runs at an average of 54.32 in 194 Tests that he has played so far. The tally includes 51 hundreds and 66 half-centuries.
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