50 free Sachin Tendulkar trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Sachin Tendulkar trivia is a 24-year career in fifty questions. It starts in Dadar with the music director he was named after, the brother who dragged him to Shivaji Park, the coach who put a coin on the stumps, Dennis Lillee telling a 14-year-old to stick to batting, Gavaskar's pads and the 664-run school partnership with Vinod Kambli. Then the firsts: a hundred on first-class debut at 15, Karachi 1989 at 16, Waqar's wicket, Old Trafford 1990, Sydney and Perth 1992 and the Yorkshire summer. The middle section is the peak: opening at Auckland, Desert Storm in Sharjah, Warne's nightmares, 1,894 runs in 1998, the Bristol hundred after his father's death, the unhappy captaincy, the Ferrari for equalling Bradman, Headingley 2002, the 2003 World Cup, the sixless 241 in Sydney, tennis elbow, passing Lara, the first ODI double century, the 2011 World Cup, the long wait for the 100th hundred and the 200th Test at the Wankhede. It closes with the honours and the person: Bharat Ratna, Rajya Sabha, the Sobers Trophy, Mumbai Indians' retired number 10, Anjali, the left-handed writing and 27 dismissals in the nineties. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on Sachin Tendulkar, with the supporting sentence attached to each question. Easy questions suit any cricket fan; the expert tier reaches Dilip Vengsarkar's nets, Steve Waugh in Goa and Gavaskar's 81 first-class hundreds.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On what date was Sachin Tendulkar born?
24 April 1973
He was born at the Nirmal Nursing Home in Dadar, Bombay, into a Marathi family.
Q 02Sachin's father named him after his favourite music director. Who?
S. D. Burman
Ramesh Tendulkar was a Marathi novelist and poet; Sachin's mother Rajni worked in insurance.
Q 03Which older brother introduced young Sachin to cricket in 1984, partly to curb his bullying?
Ajit
He also asked coach Achrekar to watch Sachin from behind a tree so the boy would play his natural game.
Q 04Who was Tendulkar's childhood coach at Shivaji Park in Dadar?
Ramakant Achrekar
He advised Sachin to move to Sharadashram Vidyamandir School, a Dadar school that produced many notable cricketers.
Q 05What did coach Achrekar place on top of the stumps to motivate a tired young Tendulkar in the nets?
A one-rupee coin
Any bowler who dismissed him won the coin; Sachin would practise for hours to keep it.
Q 06Which Australian fast bowler told the 14-year-old Tendulkar in 1987 to forget bowling and focus on batting?
Dennis Lillee
That same year he served as a ball boy at the 1987 World Cup semi-final in Bombay.
Q 07Which former Indian batsman gave the young Tendulkar a pair of his own lightweight pads?
Sunil Gavaskar
He also told the boy not to be disheartened at missing the Bombay Cricket Association's Best Junior Cricketer Award; Sachin later wore those pads for his maiden Test century.
Q 08With which schoolmate did Tendulkar share an unbroken 664-run partnership in a 1988 Harris Shield match?
Vinod Kambli
It stood as a record partnership in any form of cricket until 2006, when two juniors in Hyderabad broke it.
Q 09What did Tendulkar score on his first-class debut for Bombay against Gujarat in December 1988, aged 15?
100*
That made him the youngest Indian to score a century on first-class debut; he did the same in his Deodhar and Duleep Trophy debuts.
Q 10Which Bombay captain picked Tendulkar for the Ranji side after watching him face Kapil Dev in the nets?
Dilip Vengsarkar
He was 15; a year earlier he had been in the squad but used only as a substitute fielder.
Q 11Against which country, and in which city, did Tendulkar make his Test debut on 15 November 1989?
Pakistan, in Karachi
He was 16 years and 205 days old, then India's youngest Test debutant.
Q 12Which bowler, also making his debut in that 1989 Karachi Test, dismissed Tendulkar for 15?
Waqar Younis
Tendulkar's ODI debut followed weeks later at Gujranwala, aged 16 years and 238 days.
Q 13Where did Tendulkar score his maiden Test century, 119 not out, in August 1990?
Old Trafford, Manchester
He was the second-youngest player ever to score a Test hundred, and Wisden noted he was wearing Gavaskar's pads.
Q 21How many ODI runs did Tendulkar score in the calendar year 1998, still the record for a single year?
1,894
He passed 1,000 ODI runs in a calendar year seven times in his career.
Q 22Against which team did Tendulkar score a dedicated century in his first match after his father's death in 1999?
Kenya
He made 140 not out from 101 balls at Bristol days after flying back from the funeral.
Q 23Who took over as India captain when Tendulkar resigned in 2000?
Sourav Ganguly
Tendulkar's two spells as captain were unhappy; his second included a 3–0 defeat in Australia and a 0–2 series loss at home.
Q 14Tendulkar's unbeaten 148 at Sydney in 1991–92 made him the youngest batsman to do what?
Score a Test century in Australia
He followed it with 114 on a fast Perth pitch against Merv Hughes, Bruce Reid and Craig McDermott.
Q 15In 1992 Tendulkar became the first overseas-born player to represent which English county?
Yorkshire
He replaced the injured Craig McDermott, played 16 first-class matches and averaged 46.52.
Q 16Where did Tendulkar open the batting in an ODI for the first time, hitting 82 off 49 balls in 1994?
Auckland
Wisden said the innings 'changed ODI cricket forever'; his first ODI hundred came later that year in his 79th match.
Q 17Tendulkar's first ODI century came in his 79th one-day international, in 1994. Where?
Colombo
He had already been playing ODIs for five years; the drought ended against Australia.
Q 18How many runs did Tendulkar score as leading run-scorer of the 1996 World Cup?
523
He hit two centuries and three fifties in the tournament co-hosted by India.
Q 19Tendulkar's 143 against Australia in Sharjah in 1998 is known by what nickname?
Desert Storm
The innings was interrupted by an actual sandstorm; an ICC poll in 2020 named it his best ODI innings.
Q 20Which spinner joked in 1998 that he was having nightmares about Tendulkar after being dominated in India?
Shane Warne
Tendulkar made 446 runs at 111.50 in the series and hit an unbeaten 204 for Mumbai in the tour opener.
Q 24When BCCI's Sharad Pawar offered him the captaincy again in 2007, whom did Tendulkar recommend?
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Rahul Dravid had wanted to step down; Pawar later revealed the conversation and credited Sachin for the suggestion.
Q 25What did Fiat give Tendulkar to mark his 29th Test century, equalling Bradman, in 2002?
A Ferrari 360 Modena
It was handed over through Michael Schumacher; he then made 0, 0, 8 and 0 in his next four innings.
Q 26Where did Tendulkar score his 30th Test century, 193, to pass Bradman's record in August 2002?
Headingley, Leeds
It came in his 99th Test; India won the match and drew the four-Test series 1–1.
Q 27How many runs did Tendulkar make at the 2003 World Cup, earning Man of the Tournament?
673
He played 11 matches; Australia won the trophy.
Q 28Tendulkar's 241 not out at Sydney in January 2004 was notable for what?
It contained 33 fours and no sixes in 436 balls
He deliberately cut out the cover drive that had been getting him out; Dravid declared before he could reach a fourth Test double hundred.
Q 29Which injury sidelined Tendulkar for most of 2004?
Tennis elbow
He returned only for the last two Tests of Australia's 2004 tour, and then went 17 innings without a Test hundred.
Q 30Which two people talked Tendulkar out of retiring after India's early exit from the 2007 World Cup?
Viv Richards and his elder brother
He calls the loss to Bangladesh on 23 March 2007 one of the worst days of his career.