IANS & AFP

CHANDIGARH BATTING maestro Sachin Tendulkar, on his 39th birthday on Tuesday, released a book commemorating his 100th international century titled Sachin - A Tribute To The Legend at a glittering ceremony at the Mumbai Indians team hotel on Tuesday.

The book, published by The Hindu group, was conceptualised after Tendulkar scored his 100th international century in the Asia Cup against Bangladesh in Mirpur on March 16.

Tendulkar, flanked by Mumbai Indians coach Robin Singh and captain Harbhajan Singh, expressed his gratitude after releasing the book.

“It gives me immense pleasure to launch this book. All the efforts taken by The Hindu mean a lot to me. Over the years I have made lot of friends and they are dear ones.

Our friendship has grown in a similar manner as The Hindu has grown. I cherish each and every moment I have shared with them,” Tendulkar said.

“Reading various articles and opinions (in The Hindu) has played an important role in my career. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for putting this book together in a matter of few weeks. It’s a mammoth effort and thank you very much,” he added.

The book is a fine collection of all the published reports of all the matches in which Tendulkar scored his 100 international centuries. Besides, it has some rare pictures of the batting maestro and a range of interesting statistics.

“The narrative of the hundred hundreds concerns itself primarily with Tendulkar, the batsman. It isn’t independent of Tendulkar, the man, for art can’t be separated from the artist,” wrote Nirmal Shekar, the Sports Editor of The Hindu, in his foreword to the book.

“He must not retire now.

He must go on playing and scoring runs for the country,” the celebrated coach told the Hindustan Times.

Tendulkar made his international debut in 1989 and has played more Tests (188) and one-day internationals (463) than any other player.

He is the highest run-getter in both forms of the game and last month became the first batsman to complete 100 international centuries — 51 in Tests and 49 in one-dayers.

But Tendulkar took more than a year to move from 99 to 100 hundreds — against Bangladesh during the Asia Cup in Dhaka — and many fans started to believe he needed to rethink his career, especially in one-dayers.

The Mumbai batsman has himself dismissed talk of retirement, saying it would be “selfish” for him to quit when he still had a lot to offer Indian cricket.