Sachin Tendulkar retires from IPL
NEW DELHI: Indian batting great Sachin Tendulkar has announced his retirement from the Indian Premier League (IPL), saying it was the “right time” to stop playing the Twenty20 tournament.
“This is my last IPL. This has been a fantastic season,” Tendulkar said in a television interview after his team’s victory in the final on Sunday.
Tendulkar is the world’s leading scorer in both Test and one-day cricket with an unprecedented 100 international centuries.
He has figured in all six editions of the T20 competition.
“I think this is the right time to stop playing the IPL. I am 40. Got to accept it. This is the best point to say thank you very much to all the supporters and wellwishers,” he said.
The IPL has been dogged by corruption allegations with three cricketers and some 11 bookmakers among those arrested over spot-fixing, causing outrage in the cricket-mad nation.
Dubbed the “Little Master,” Tendulkar has scored 15,837 runs in 198 Tests with 51 centuries and 18,426 runs in 463 one-day internationals with 49 hundreds.
Tendulkar, who quit one-dayers last year, has played just one T20 international for India, against South Africa at Johannesburg in December 2006.
More bookies arrested
Indian police said yesterday they have arrested six bookmakers in Goa state who were part of a syndicate betting on Indian Premier League cricket matches.
The IPL tournament has been reeling from a spotfixing scandal, which has led to the arrest of three cricketers and 11 bookies, but police said the Goa arrests did not appear to be connected to that case, based on initial probes.
“We have arrested six persons in connection with cricket betting activity,” Goa’s deputy inspector general O.P. Mishra told AFP, adding that investigations were still in progress. He told reporters that equipment including laptops and mobile phones had been seized from the Goa premises where the bookies, all from Mumbai, had been staying for the last 45 days — since the IPL tournament began.
They did not appear to be involved in spot-fixing from the initial evidence, police said.
Betting on cricket is illegal in India, while spot-fixing is the illegal practice of rigging specific parts of a match for financial gained on Sunday night.