Friday, February 13, 2009

Awards

There's never a shortage of awards when you're as big a star as Sachin Tendulkar.

The Padma Vibhushan is India's second highest civilian honour. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It is awarded to recognize exceptional and distinguished service to the nation in any field. Sachin Tendulkar received this award in the year 2008 for his services to Indian sports.

The Padma Shri is awarded to people doing exceptional work in their respective fields. It is given away by the President of India in a very special function at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan. Sachin Tendulkar featured in this list in 1999 for his outstanding contribution to Indian cricket.

The 'Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award' is India's highest sporting award. An exclusive award, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award is awarded only to those individuals who have done India proud on the world stage. The award was instituted in 1991 and Tendulkar is the seventh recepient of the award. Sachin Tendulkar has done enough to deserve this award and more.

In 1997 Sachin Tendulkar became the 11th Indian to be named Cricketer of the Year by the Wisden Almanack

The Arjuna award carries a cash prize of Rs. 50,000, a bronze statuette of Arjuna and a scroll. Instituted in the year 1961, the awards are given annually to honour outstanding sportsmen. Sachin Tendulkar received the honour in 1994.


Sachin Tendulkar has been the Man of the Match on ten occasions in Tests, while he’s bagged the award 54 times in ODIs – the highest for any player. He also won the Player-of-the-Tournament award after a stupendous performance in the 2003 World Cup.


Having already bagged many prestigious awards in an international career that has seen the little master from Mumbai stamp his authority on world cricket, Tendulkar added another feather to his cap. Mumbai's favourite son was awarded the 'Maharashtra Bhushan' for the year 2000-01. The award was announced on Tendulkar's birthday by Cultural Affairs Minister Ramkrishna More. The award comprises a citation and a cash element of Rupees Five lakhs.


The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), headed by NCP leader Sharad Pawar presented Tendulkar with a 10 kg silver bat and a cheque of Rs 2.51 lakh to honour him after he was conferred with 'Maharashtra Bhushan' award by the state government and also for completing a record 10,000 runs in one-day internationals

Sachin Tendulkar played his 100th Test at The Oval in September 2002, but that didn’t deter the BCCI from organising a felicitation in his honour the next month when India played a Test at home against West Indies. In fact, the BCCI also shifted the venue of the Test from Kanpur to Mumbai, so that Tendulkar could be feted on his home ground – the Wankhede Stadium.

In December 2006, Tendulkar was felicitated at the Castrol Cricketing Awards ceremony held in Johannesburg for going past Sunil Gavaskar’s record of 34 centuries. The man who presented the award to Tendulkar was Gavaskar himself. Gavaskar, a childhood icon for Tendulkar, asked the ‘Bombay Bomber’ to score more centuries as Ricky Ponting was ‘snapping at his heels’