Sachin Tendulkar's achievement of completion of 20 years in international cricket was celebrated by the entire cricketing world.  Apart from millions of fans in India and world wide it was celebrated  by past and current greats all across the cricketing world.  The media too for a change did not lag behind in heaping praises on the Indian legend by highlighing his achievements. A look at some statistics not widely projected shows how consistent has Sachin Tendulkar been in his glorious career.

Sachin Tendulkar made his Test Debut in 1989 and scored 215 runs at a modest average of 35.83.  Sachin Tendulkar made his ODI debut too in the same year but was out for a duck in the only innings he played and did not perform well in his first full international year in 1990 scoring 239 runs at an average of 23.90.  In his 20th year in international cricket Sachin Tendulkar was exceptional scoring 541 runs in Test Matches at an average of 67.62 and 972 runs in One Dayers at an average of 54.00.  The above stats are an clear indication that critics are wrong in their assessment of seniors like Tendulakr stating that seniors should be chucked out of the team as they are not performing and live on past performances.  Infact Seniors or in fact or for that matter almost all players play much better later in their career than they were at the start of their career.

Another area to prove that Sachin Tendulkar has been consistent through out his career is the fact that Sachin has scored more than 1000 runs in a year in Test Matches on 5 occasions.  Sachin Tendulkar has achieved the same feat on 7 occasions in one dayers. In fact between 1992 to 2009 Sachin Tendulkar  has scored more than 1000 Test and ODI runs combined on 14 occasions.  The only time he has scored to amass 1000 runs was in 1993, 2006 and 2007 when he scored 959, 856 and 895 runs respectively and had it not been for injuries and the fact that India play fewer Tests than other countries Sachin would have got on to 1000 runs even in those years.   Another record that could interest millions of Sachins fans is the fact that Sachin Tendulkar has scored atleast a century or more in a year for every year since 1992 as Sachin amassed a imposing 87 centuries during this period.

As is the case with most greats, Sachin Tendulkar too finds a place even in his 20th year merely on the strength of perforamcnes and that is what matters at the end of the day.