Sachin Tendulkar to retire from cricket after 200th test match

Sachin Tendulkar, the great Indian cricketer, has announced his decision to retire from all forms of the game following his 200th test match - the second in a two-match series against the West Indies next month.

The 40-year-old retired from one-day internationals last year.

Tendulkar's international career has spanned four decades, beginning in 1989 with a test match against Pakistan.

Born in Mumbai and regarded as one of the all-time greats of the game, the batsman is revered in his home country as a national hero.

In his 198 test matches he has scored 15,837 runs at an average of 53.86, including 51 hundreds and 67 half-centuries.

In 2012, Tendulkar became the first batsman to score 34,000 aggregate international runs and the first to score 100 international centuries.

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASachin_Tendulkar.jpg