Mumbai Indians’ Sachin Tendulkar lauds the 2013 IPL season

 

Sachin Tendulkhar, the legendary Indian batsman and Mumbai Indians’ player, is extremely happy to have won the recently-concluded sixth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and expressed that he had waited for this moment for six years.
The 40-year-old cricketer captained the franchise in its initial three seasons, before giving up on the responsibility as he wanted to concentrate on his personal performance. Mumbai has always been considered as one of the strongest teams of the cash-rich league but they failed to clinch the trophy in the first five seasons.
However, the Indians rose to the occasion in the just-finished season and defeated Chennai Super Kings in the final of the tournament on Sunday at Kolkata.
The batting-maestro, who announced his retirement from IPL cricket after the final, expressed that he badly wanted to see the franchise win the league before he calls it a day from the illustrious tournament. The legendary cricketer was all praise for the whole side and believes that they played according to their potential in IPL 6.
“I have waited for this for six years and six years is a long time.” Sachin told the IPL website. “But it's never too late. This has been an outstanding season for us; we have thoroughly enjoyed every moment with each other. The goal for this season was to win the trophy and I am glad that we have been able to do that.”
Mumbai reached the final of the tournament in 2010 under Tendulkar’s captaincy but failed to win the trophy. However, the great batsman has no regrets and is jubilant to see his team on the victory stand this time.
“It was good to reach the final [in 2010] but this year we made it till the end.” he added. “Whoever is the captain, it doesn't matter as long as we lift the trophy.”
Having already retired from the shorter formats of international cricket, the cricketer from Mumbai will now be seen only in the longer version of the game. With more than 34,000 runs at the highest stage of the game, Tendulkar is without doubt one of the all-time greats.