Virender Sehwag salutes Sachin, his Hero No 1

Virender Sehwag pays tribute to Tendulkar's brilliance as he scales another peak

While I was growing up, I never imagined anyone scoring 50 Test hundreds. But now, after watching him play international cricket for more than 20 years, I believe it is possible.

The other day I was having a discussion with Sachin and told him that he should score 100 international centuries. He said, 'if God is kind to me, I will definitely achieve that too.'

Deserving
No one deserves to achieve this milestone (50 Test tons) more than Sachin Tendulkar. He has worked very hard for it. He is the God of cricket and only he could have achieved it. A couple of players may have done it at the first-class level, but nobody has done it in international cricket. He thoroughly deserves this.

It's hard to score even a single hundred in international cricket and scoring 50 Test tons is that much more harder. If it were easy then there would be more names up against that feat, but there aren't.

I have enjoyed each and every Sachin century. The most special one for me though, was the hundred in the Chennai Test against England in 2008, especially since it was soon after the Mumbai terror attacks.

Sachin was there when I scored my maiden Test hundred on debut in Bloemfontein (November, 2001). We put on a partnership of around 300 runs. He guided me throughout my innings.

The Multan triple hundred (vs Pakistan, March 2004) is also very close to my heart, where again we had a great partnership. He remained not out on 194. Though Sachin was not there when I scored my first ODI hundred (vs New Zealand, August 2001), he messaged me later saying 'Very well done. Keep going'.

Being human
Sachin is a very, very nice human being... surely one of theu00a0 nicest people I have ever met.
I remember, once we were getting out of the team bus and there was a disabled guy nearby.u00a0 Sachin was the only one to go up to him and pose for a picture. No one else from the team even thought of doing that.
Today if I'm a cricketer it is because of Sachin Tendulkar. Else, I would never have picked up a bat. He's the reason behind me playing cricket.