On December 11, 1988, a 15-year-old Sachin Tendulkar scored a century on his first-class debut at the Wankhede Stadium. A week later, a baby boy was born in Thodupuzha, Kerala, and his cricket-mad father PC Baby, quite naturally, named him Sachin.

Unlike the legend he is named after, Sachin Baby bats left-handed. He has been a regular member of Kerala's middle order since his debut in 2009, but it took him till his 25th first-class match, in December 2014, to score his first hundred, an unbeaten 200 against Hyderabad.



Consistency in first-class cricket continues to elude Baby, but he has done better in limited-overs cricket, as a List-A average in the mid-40s would suggest. He was part of the Rajasthan Royals squad in the 2013 season, though he only got to play one match, and three years later, Royal Challengers Bangalore signed him at the 2016 auction for his base price of INR 10 lakh.