Sachin Tendulkar Trivia
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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 01Which fiery tennis star did young Tendulkar imitate with long hair and a headband?
John McEnroe
John McEnroe was his hero at a time when all his friends backed the ice-cool Björn Borg; young Sachin grew his hair, tied on a headband and carried a racquet around to look the part.
Q 02Tendulkar's father named him Sachin after which favourite music director?
S. D. Burman
S. D. Burman's first name was Sachin: Tendulkar's father, a Marathi poet and novelist, loved the composer's film music enough to hand the name on to his youngest child.
Q 03Which older brother introduced young Sachin to cricket in 1984, partly to curb his bullying?
Ajit
Ajit spotted the talent, took the 11-year-old to a proper coach and gave up his own cricket to guide his brother's, a sacrifice Tendulkar thanked him for in his farewell speech.
Q 04Who was Tendulkar's childhood coach at Shivaji Park in Dadar?
Ramakant Achrekar
Ramakant Achrekar would ferry him across the city on his scooter so the boy could bat in a couple of practice matches a day, yet in 29 years he never once told his pupil 'well played'.
Q 05What did his coach place on top of the stumps to motivate a tired young Tendulkar in the nets?
A one-rupee coin
A one-rupee coin went to any bowler who got him out, but if he survived the whole session he kept it, and he still counts the coins he won among his most prized possessions.
Q 06Which Australian fast bowler told the 14-year-old Tendulkar in 1987 to forget bowling and focus on batting?
Dennis Lillee
Dennis Lillee was coaching at the MRF Pace Foundation in Madras, where the boy had turned up hoping to become a fast bowler; unimpressed, Lillee sent him back to his batting.
Q 07Which former Indian batsman gave the young Tendulkar a pair of his own lightweight pads?
Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar also wrote to the 14-year-old when he missed out on a best junior cricketer award, pointing out that the list of past winners had one name missing and that man had not done badly.
Q 08With which schoolmate did Tendulkar share a record unbroken stand of over 600 runs in a 1988 Harris Shield match?
Vinod Kambli
Vinod Kambli made 349 not out in the stand of 664, which ended only when their coach forced the pair to declare; he then took six wickets.
Q 09In 1992 Tendulkar became the first batsman in international cricket to be given out by what?
A third umpire's TV replay
A third umpire's TV replay ran him out at Durban in November 1992: Jonty Rhodes threw in, the square-leg umpire asked upstairs, and Karl Liebenberg ruled him short of his ground.
Q 10Which Ranji Trophy captain picked a 15-year-old Tendulkar after watching him face Kapil Dev in the nets?
Dilip Vengsarkar
Dilip Vengsarkar had India's Test bowlers, Kapil Dev among them, try the boy out in the nets, then went to the selection meeting that same evening and insisted he be picked.
Q 11Which veteran Pakistani leg-spinner did 16-year-old Tendulkar hit for four sixes in one over of a 1989 exhibition match?
Abdul Qadir
Abdul Qadir had dared the boy to try hitting him after a younger spinner was taken apart, then watched four sixes fly in a 20-over exhibition put on at Peshawar to please the crowd.
Q 12Which Pakistani bowler, also making his Test debut, dismissed Tendulkar for 15 in his first Test innings in 1989?
Waqar Younis
Waqar Younis bowled him, then later in the series hit him on the nose with a bouncer at Sialkot; the bleeding 16-year-old refused to go off, said 'main khelega' (I will play) and made 57.
Q 13Where did Tendulkar score his maiden Test century, 119 not out, in August 1990?
Q 21What job did a 14-year-old Tendulkar do at the 1987 World Cup semi-final on his home ground?
Ball boy
A ball boy at the Wankhede as India lost that 1987 semi-final, he came back to the same ground 24 years later and won the World Cup final on it.
Q 22Against which team did Tendulkar score a century at the 1999 World Cup days after returning from his father's funeral?
Kenya
Kenya faced him at Bristol days after his father's funeral: India had lost to Zimbabwe without him, so he flew back to England and made 140 not out off 101 balls.
Q 23Who took over as India captain when Tendulkar resigned in 2000?
Sourav Ganguly
Sourav Ganguly got the job when Tendulkar stood down after a 0-2 home series defeat; the chief selector of the day recalls him saying he wanted to concentrate on his batting.
Old Trafford, Manchester
Old Trafford, Manchester is where the 17-year-old batted through the final day for an unbeaten 119, his first international hundred, to save a Test that India had looked like losing.
Q 14On which Australian ground, famed for its fast and bouncy pitch, did 18-year-old Tendulkar make a celebrated 114 in 1992?
The WACA, Perth
The WACA, Perth was as quick and bouncy as pitches came, and his 114 there led Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes to tell his own captain the teenager would end up with more runs than him.
Q 15In 1992 Tendulkar became the first overseas player to play for which English county?
Yorkshire
Yorkshire had long kept a born-in-the-county selection policy, so a 19-year-old from India was a small revolution, and he got the job only because Australian Craig McDermott pulled out injured.
Q 16Tendulkar first opened the batting in an ODI in 1994 because which regular opener woke with a stiff neck?
Navjot Singh Sidhu
Navjot Singh Sidhu's stiff neck let Tendulkar, by his own account, plead with his captain and manager for one chance at the top in Auckland; he hit 82 off 49 balls and the opener's job was his.
Q 17Tendulkar retired with a then-record 49 one-day hundreds, but in which ODI did his first finally arrive?
79th
His 79th one-day international, against Australia in Colombo in 1994, finally brought the hundred, almost five years after his debut and only months after he had moved up to open.
Q 18After Tendulkar fell for 65, which team were awarded the riot-hit 1996 World Cup semi-final?
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka were awarded the match by referee Clive Lloyd: Tendulkar's stumping began a slide from 98 for 1 to 120 for 8, and the Eden Gardens crowd threw bottles and set fire to the stands.
Q 19Tendulkar's 143 against Australia in Sharjah in 1998 is known by what nickname?
Desert Storm
Desert Storm was named for the real sandstorm that halted play and stiffened India's target; they lost, but his 143 still carried them into the final, where he made another hundred on his 25th birthday.
Q 20Which spinner joked in 1998 that he was having nightmares about Tendulkar after being dominated in India?
Shane Warne
Shane Warne ran into a batsman who had prepared for him by scuffing up rough outside leg stump in the nets and having former India leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan bowl into it.
Q 24When BCCI's Sharad Pawar offered him the captaincy again in 2007, whom did Tendulkar recommend?
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Mahendra Singh Dhoni had impressed him from the slip cordon, where Tendulkar kept asking the young wicketkeeper what he would do next and liked the calm answers, so he declined and named him.
Q 25What did Fiat give Tendulkar to mark his 29th Test century, equalling Bradman, in 2002?
A Ferrari 360 Modena
A Ferrari 360 Modena set off a row at home when the government waived more than a crore rupees of import duty on it; after a court challenge, Fiat paid the bill itself.
Q 26Where did Tendulkar score 193 in August 2002, his 30th Test century, taking him past Bradman's tally of 29?
Headingley, Leeds
Headingley, Leeds offered a green pitch under cloud, the classic English seamers' morning, yet India chose to bat and his 193 helped them to 628 for 8 and an innings victory.
Q 27Which fast bowler did Tendulkar slash over third man for six at the 2003 World Cup?
Shoaib Akhtar
Shoaib Akhtar, then the fastest bowler in the world, dropped short and wide in his first over and was slashed over third man for six; Tendulkar went on to 98 off 75 balls and India won.
Q 28In his 241 not out at Sydney in 2004, which shot did Tendulkar refuse to play for ten hours?
The cover drive
The cover drive had kept getting him out that series, so, by his own account, he decided out in the middle to give it up: 613 minutes and 33 fours followed without a single one.
Q 29Which injury kept Tendulkar out of cricket for months in 2004 and led to surgery in 2005?
Tennis elbow
Tennis elbow needed surgery in 2005, after which, he later said, he could not even lift his young son's plastic bat and feared he would never play again.
Q 30Which Indian Super League football club did Tendulkar co-own from its launch in 2014?
Kerala Blasters
Kerala Blasters took their name from 'Master Blaster', as fans had long called him; he said so himself when the Kochi club's name was announced before the league's first season in 2014.