On this day: Sachin Tendulkar makes his IPL debut

On 14th May 2008, the Indian Premier League (IPL) witnessed the debut of Sachin Tendulkar. The legendary batter replaced Harbhajan Singh as the skipper of the team who had been captaining Mumbai Indians until then. Tendulkar had missed the first seven games of IPL’s inaugural season due to an injury.

MI faced Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at Wankhede Stadium in this match. Tendulkar won the toss and elected to field first. CSK could only score 156/6 in their 20 overs with Dhawal Kulkarni, Dwayne Bravo, and Shaun Pollock delivering accurate overs. The crowd cheered loudly as Tendulkar stepped in to bat with Sanath Jayasuriya in the second innings, but he couldn’t make a mark in the game and was dismissed for 12 runs.

Jayasuriya then went on to score the first-ever IPL century by a Mumbai Indians batter. He remained not out as Mumbai chased down 157 with ease. He scored a magnificent 114 runs off just 48 balls to help Mumbai finish the chase with Robin Uthappa at the other end.

Throughout his IPL career, Sachin Tendulkar participated in 78 matches, scoring a total of 2334 runs with an average of 33.83 and a strike rate of 119.82. From 2008 to 2011, Tendulkar was the captain of Mumbai Indians, but he stepped down from the role in 2012. Harbhajan Singh took over as the captain again before Rohit Sharma became the captain in 2013. With Tendulkar by his side, Sharma led the team to their first-ever IPL title that year. Tendulkar played his final season in 2013 and retired from all forms of the game after winning the IPL trophy.