India's 'God of cricket' Sachin Tendulkar celebrated his 45th birthday with wife Anjali, former Australian captain Michael Clarke and Indian cricket team coach Ravi Shastri at the launch of cricket writer Boria Majumdar's book 'Eleven Gods and a Billion Indians' in Mumbai on Monday night.
Tendulkar cut a beautiful cake that had a miniature of the legendary batsman and a sequence of his various celebrated shots.
Celebrating his 45th birthday on Tuesday, the batting maestro recalled how his dented car added to the joy the day India won their second ODI World Cup, in 2011 -- a personal first for him in a record sixth appearance at the marquee tournament.
"After we won the World Cup, Anjali (Tendulkar), being superstitious, didn't want to be at the ground. I called her and said 'what are you doing at home? You got to be here in the dressing room, we are all celebrating'," Tendulkar recalled.
"Somehow she (Anjali) made it to the stadium and while she was getting there, just outside the stadium, people were dancing, celebrating, jumping on top of the cars."
The eve of his birthday was also exactly 20 years since Tendulkar demolished Australia in Sharjah, in what is famous as 'Desert Storm'.
Those two innings in Sharjah -- a 143 and a 134 - when a young Tendulkar took on the likes of Shane Warne, Damien Fleming among others, are regarded as some of his best knocks.
(With PTI inputs)