Sachin Tendulkar, a name that the entire cricket fraternity will always remember for his enormuous contribution to the world of this international game, has now been voted as the 'Best Test Player of the 21st Century' in an online poll conducted by the official website of Cricket Australia.
The 'little master', as he is popularly known as, received 23% of the votes, in which 16,000 people participated. There were a list of 100 players on the list and Tendulkar topped the chart.
Sri Lanka's left-handed batsman Kumar Sangakkara got 14% of the votes and secured the second place on that list, followed by Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting. The likes of Jacques Kallis, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Ab de Villiers are also on that list, but they were not anywhere near the Indian batting legend in terms of votes. Also, Tendulkar was the only Indian batsman to feature on the top 10 list.
"After 10 days of counting down and no end of deliberations, cricket.com.au released its final countdown of the 100 best Test players since 2000 a couple of days ago. Readers debated the top 10, just as you did players 11 through 100, but we also provided an opportunity for you to decide your No.1 Test player of the century," said the official website of Cricket Australia.
Tendulkar is the only batsman in the history of the game to have scored 100 international centuries (Test and ODIs). In his astonishing career of 24 years, he went on to score 15,921 runs at an average of 53.78 in the longer format of the game. He also has 51 centuries to his name in the same format, more than anyone else in the world of cricket.
Here is the list of Top 10 players of 21st century as per an online poll conducted by the official website of Cricket Australia:
1. Sachin Tendulkar (Ind) 23%
2. Kumar Sangakkara (SL) 14%
3. Adam Gilchrist (Aus) 13%
4. Ricky Ponting (Aus) 11%
5. Jacques Kallis (SA) 11%
6. AB de Villiers (SA) 10%
7. Shane Warne (Aus) 9%
8. Glenn McGrath (Aus) 5%
9. Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) 3%
10. Dale Steyn (SA) 1%.
