In Pictures: 10 childhood memories of Sachin Tendulkar as he celebrates his 47th birthday
XtraTime Web Desk: The chant Sachin!!! Sachin!!! will forever stay in the minds of the Tendulkar fans. Very few Indian sports personality invoked such a nationwide adulation as the master blaster. Exactly forty seven years back on this day the batting genius was born to a Maharashtrian family. Called the 'God of cricket', he changed the face of the game and young generations looked up to him as a role model. From making many records to receiving the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India’s highest sporting honour - Tendulkar holds a special place in the heart of every Indian. Here are the top ten childhood memories of Sachin Tendulkar: 1/10 Tendulkar was born at Nirmal Nursing Home in Dadar, Bombay on 24 April 1973. His father, Ramesh Tendulkar, was a well-known Marathi novelist & poet and his mother, Rajni, worked in the insurance industry. 2/10 Ramesh Tendulkar named his son Sachin as he was a big admirer of music director Sachin Dev Burman. 3/10 Tendulkar spent his formative years in the Sahitya Sahawas Cooperative Housing Society in Bandra (East). Later he moved to Dadar where he stayed with his aunt and uncle. It was close to Shivaji Park, where he trained during his childhood days. 4/10 Young Sachin started growing an interest in tennis apart from cricket. He idolized world-famous tennis player John McEnroe. 5/10 Tendulkar trained under Ramakant Achrekar at Shivaji Park. He would practice for hours in the nets. If he became exhausted, Achrekar would put a one-rupee coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Tendulkar would get the coin. If Tendulkar passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Tendulkar still possessed those 13 coins he won. 6/10 Sachin consistently featured in the school team in the Matunga Gujarati Seva Mandal (MGSM) Shield. He also played club cricket, initially representing John Bright Cricket Club in Bombay's premier club cricket tournament, the Kanga League, and later went on to play for the Cricket Club of India. 7/10 In his season in 1988, Tendulkar scored a century in every innings he played. He was also involved in an unbroken 664-run partnership in a Lord Harris Shield inter-school game against St. Xavier's High School in 1988 with his friend and teammate Vinod Kambli. Tendulkar scored 326 (not out) in this innings and scored over a thousand runs in the tournament. 8/10 As a young boy, Sachin Tendulkar wanted to become a fast bowler but was rejected by Dennis Lillee's ‘MRF Pace Foundation’ in 1987. 9/10 Tendulkar served as a ball boy for the match between India and Zimbabwe at the ‘Wankhede Stadium’ during the 1987 ‘World Cup.’On 20 January 1987, he also turned out as substitute for Imran Khan's side in an exhibition game at Brabourne Stadium in Bombay, to mark the golden jubilee of Cricket Club of India. 10/10 Former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar gave him a pair of his own ultra light pads and consoled him to not get disheartened for not getting the Bombay Cricket Association's "Best junior cricket award" (He was 14 years that time).