Why is Sachin Tendulkar called the God of Cricket? The records that still stand in 2026

Sachin Tendulkar has been retired since November 2013. Thirteen years on, the nickname has not moved, and neither have most of the numbers behind it: he is still the leading run-scorer in Test cricket, in one-day internationals and in international cricket as a whole, and still the only batter to reach 100 international hundreds.

But “God of Cricket” is a claim, and a claim is worth checking. So this is the honest version in 2026 — which of his records still stand, who is closest to each one, which have finally gone, and which famous line about him was never said at all.

Why Sachin Tendulkar is called the God of Cricket

The phrase attached itself to him during the years when he was, on his own, the reason a country watched. He was 16 years and 205 days old when he made his Test debut against Pakistan at Karachi on 15 November 1989, and he made 15. His one-day debut a month later, at Gujranwala on 18 December, was a two-ball duck. He finished with 664 international appearances, more than any cricketer has managed before or since; Mahela Jayawardene is second on 652.

The line most often quoted is Matthew Hayden’s: “I have seen God, he bats at No. 4 for India.” Hayden said it after facing him; it has been repeated ever since because the Australian side of that era had the best possible view of what the fuss was about. Tendulkar scored 20 international hundreds against Australia alone — 11 in Tests and nine in ODIs — and the 11 in Tests is still the most by an India batter against them.

The records Sachin Tendulkar still holds

Every figure below is current to 16 September 2026, with the nearest active or retired challenger beside it. Four of the twelve are being chased by the same man.

Record	Tendulkar	Next best
Most international runs	34,357	Virat Kohli 28,359
Most Test runs	15,921	Joe Root 14,278
Most ODI runs	18,426	Virat Kohli 14,941
Most international hundreds	100	Virat Kohli 85
Most Test hundreds	51	Jacques Kallis 45
Most Tests played	200	James Anderson 188
Most ODIs played	463	Mahela Jayawardene 448
Most ODI fifties	96	Kumar Sangakkara 93
Most fours in Tests	2,058+	Rahul Dravid 1,654
Most fours in ODIs	2,016	Sanath Jayasuriya 1,500
Most ODI runs in a calendar year	1,894 (1998)	Sourav Ganguly 1,767 (1999)
Most runs at ODI World Cups	2,278	Virat Kohli 1,795

Two of those rows need a note. The Test fours figure is printed by ESPNcricinfo as 2,058+, with the plus sign, because boundary data does not survive for every match of his career — it is a floor, not a final total, and stating it as a flat 2,058 would claim more than the source does. And the Test and ODI run records are safer than they look from the raw gap: no other batter has passed 15,000 Test runs or 18,000 in ODIs at all.

The one genuine threat is Joe Root, 1,643 Test runs behind and still playing. Virat Kohli sits second on four of these lists and is still playing one-day cricket; on international runs he is roughly 6,000 short, which is four more years of the volume nobody schedules any more.

The records that have fallen

Most hundreds in ODI cricket. This was his for most of a generation and it is not any more. Virat Kohli passed 49 in November 2023 and is now on 54 from 314 matches, against Tendulkar’s 49 from 463. It is the single most cited Tendulkar record and it is the one that has gone — our list of the most centuries in ODI cricket is kept up to date separately.

Youngest India international, and this one went in 2026. Tendulkar’s Test debut at 16 years and 205 days made him the youngest player India had ever capped. On 4 July 2026, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi played a T20I against England at Old Trafford aged 15 years and 99 days and took the record off him. He made 14 from 10 balls with two sixes. Tendulkar is still India’s youngest Test debutant — Sooryavanshi has not played a Test — but the broader record is gone.

The hundredth hundred, and the first double

The number the nickname rests on arrived on 16 March 2012 at Mirpur: 114 from 147 balls against Bangladesh, his 100th hundred in international cricket. It is the only time any batter has reached three figures in international cricket a hundred times, and it came in his second-to-last one-day international. He played his last ODI two days later, 52 against Pakistan at the same ground, and retired from all cricket after his 200th Test, against West Indies at the Wankhede, in November 2013.

The other landmark worth stating precisely, because it is usually rounded off: on 24 February 2010 at Gwalior he made 200 not out from 147 balls against South Africa, with 25 fours and three sixes — the first double hundred in the history of men’s one-day internationals. Eleven have been made since, by nine batters. Rohit Sharma has three of them, including the highest, 264 against Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens in 2014.

Sachin Tendulkar’s career record

Format	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave	100s	50s
Tests	200	329	15,921	248*	53.78	51	68
ODIs	463	452	18,426	200*	44.83	49	96
T20Is	1	1	10	10	10.00	0	0
All international	664	782	34,357	248*	48.52	100	164

He played exactly one T20 international — India’s first, against South Africa at Johannesburg on 1 December 2006 — and made 10 from 12 balls. He won the World Cup in 2011 at the sixth attempt, in his home city, and played six years for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL.

The Barack Obama quote is not real

One line turns up under every Tendulkar tribute: a claim that Barack Obama, as US president, said he watched Sachin bat because he wanted to know why his country’s economy dipped while the innings was on. It is a fabrication. ESPNcricinfo went looking for it in 2023 and reported that there is nothing in the public record to substantiate a single word of it — Alagappan Muthu used it as the opening example of how a piece of cricket folklore spreads because people want it to be true.

We are leaving it off this page for that reason. The Hayden line is real and quoted from a player who faced him; the Obama line is not, and a page about the most documented batting career in cricket does not need an invented compliment.

So is he still the God of Cricket?

On the record he is: most international runs, most Test runs, most ODI runs, most Tests, most ODIs, most Test hundreds, 100 international hundreds. On the argument, the honest answer is that a generation has grown up on Virat Kohli, who is second on four of those lists and past Tendulkar on ODI hundreds — which is why we keep a separate page asking whether Kohli is the new God of cricket, and a running count of Kohli’s international centuries.

Nobody else is in the conversation, and on the two numbers that would settle it — 34,357 and 100 — nobody is close.

More cricket explainers and records

Featured photo: NOAH SEELAM / AFP

All career and record figures from ESPNcricinfo Statsguru, pulled 16 September 2026.