After a few hours of his final match on 16 November 2013, the Prime Minister's Office announced the decision to award him the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award. Tendulkar received the Arjuna Award in 1994 for his outstanding sporting achievement, the Khel Ratna award in 1997, India's highest sporting honour, and the Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan awards in 19, respectively, India's fourth- and second-highest civilian awards. He had previously been named "Player of the Tournament" at the 2003 edition of the tournament, held in South Africa. Later in his career, Tendulkar was a part of the Indian team that won the 2011 World Cup, his first win in six World Cup appearances for India.
In 2002, halfway through his career, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ranked him the second-greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Don Bradman, and the second-greatest ODI batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards. Tendulkar took up cricket at the age of eleven, made his Test debut on 15 November 1989 against Pakistan in Karachi at the age of sixteen, and went on to represent Mumbai domestically and India internationally for close to twenty-four years. He is affectionately known as "Little Master" or "Master Blaster". In 2013, he was the only Indian cricketer included in an all-time Test World XI named to mark the 150th anniversary of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. He is the highest run scorer of all time in international cricket, and the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries, the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day International (ODI), the holder of the record for the most runs in both Test and ODI cricket, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar ( / ˌ s ʌ tʃ ɪ n t ɛ n ˈ d uː l k ər/ ( listen) Marathi pronunciation: born 24 April 1973) is a former international cricketer of India who served as captain of the Indian national team.