‘Pleasant surprise’: Sachin Tendulkar on his life-size statue at Wankhede Stadium

Legendary cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar on Tuesday said that it was a ‘pleasant surprise’ that his life-size statue was going to be unveiled at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai later this year, during the ODI World Cup in India.

It was in fact at the iconic Wankhede Stadium that Tendulkar won the ICC World Cup in 2011, and played his 200th and final Test in 2013.

“Well it’s a pleasant surprise. The president is here, Mr. Kale and the other committee members are going to join us in a while. We’ve come here to identify a spot. The idea was shared with me, and as I said it is a pleasant surprise. My career had started here and this is like the completion of a big circle,” he told news agency ANI.

Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) president Amol Kale announced the news on Tuesday. It will be the first instance of a player’s statue being installed at the iconic stadium.

“We will unveil the statue during the World Cup as a lot of members from the cricket fraternity will be here and will try to make it a grand occasion,” Kale said.

In cricket stadiums across the country, there are only a handful of life-size statues. Only three different statues of the former Indian captain Colonel CK Nayudu have been erected thus far. They are located at the Holkar Stadium in Indore, the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) stadium in Nagpur, and the VDCA stadium in Andhra.

Sachin has featured in 200 Tests, 463 ODIs, and 1 T20I for India, scoring 34,357 runs across all formats. The Master Blaster holds the record for most international centuries with 100 hundreds to his name.

With inputs from ANI