Tendulkar may quit one-day cricket before Tests

Indian batting superstar Sachin Tendulkar said Tuesday he could stop playing taxing one-dayers first before quitting international cricket. “One-day cricket puts a lot of pressure and there are more chances of injury. So, one-day cricket is what I may stop playing before Tests,” Tendulkar said in an interview with NDTV. “

Test cricket is more challenging. One-day cricket puts a lot of load on the body, but if I make a decision I will let everyone know.

At this stage, I don’t know.” His comments came on the day the national selectors named Mahendra Singh Dhoni, 26, as India’s new captain for one-day internationals.

Tendulkar has been plagued with various injuries since making his international debut in 1989 at the age of 16. He was not amused when it was rumoured that he had played his last one-day international at Lord’s in England this month. “I don’t know where the rumours about me retiring after the Lord’s one-dayer started.

I didn’t say anything. I spoke to my wife Anjali and she told me this news had started back home. I never said anything,” he said. “I just had to focus on the game at hand. People were saying this is my last game in England.

Tmay be possible, but certainly not my last one-day international.” Tendulkar has so far scored 11,150 runs in 140 Tests with a world-record 37 centuries. He is the world’s leading scorer in one-day internationals, with 15,425 runs in 395 matches and a record 41 hundreds. He missed out on scoring six hundreds on the England tour, where India played three Tests and seven one-dayers, but

Tendulkar said winning always mattered more than runs. “The fact that I missed the opportunity to score six hundreds on the England tour is definitely there at the back of my mind, but what’s more important to me is that India won on those occasions,” he said. “(A) hundred is only important if India wins, and for me the excitement was there because we won.” Tendulkar, who opted out of the ongoing Twenty20 World Championships in South Africa, is gearing up for a busy international season.

India play 12 one-dayers at home in the coming months, seven against Australia and five against Pakistan. They then play three home Tests against Pakistan before touring Australia for a Test series.