Sachin Tendulkar World Cup victory lap awarded Laureus honour

Tendulkar was in Berlin for the awards ceremony on Monday, 17 February, and received the trophy from former Australia captain Steve Waugh, after Tennis legend Boris Becker made the announcement. The award, for the period between 2000 to 2020, celebrates "moments from the past two decades where sport has unified people in the most extraordinary way."

"It's incredible," Tendulkar said after receiving the award. "The feeling of winning the World Cup was beyond what words can express. How many times [can] you get an event happening where there are no mixed opinions? Very rarely the entire country celebrates," Tendulkar said. "And this is a reminder of how powerful a sport is, and what magic it does to our lives. Even now when I watch that it has stayed with me."

It was Tendulkar’s sixth and final World Cup appearance, and a long-held dream was realised when MS Dhoni hit Sri Lanka’s Nuwan Kulasekara down the ground for the match-winning six.

Asked to relive his journey to the World Cup, Tendulkar said: "My journey started in 1983 when I was 10 years old. India had won the World Cup. I did not understand the significance, and just because everybody was celebrating, I also joined the party.

"But somewhere, I knew something special had happened to the country, and I wanted to experience it one day. That's how my journey began. It was the proudest moment of my life, holding that trophy which I chased for 22 years, but I never lost hope. I was merely lifting that trophy on behalf of my countrymen."