Now it's Tendulkar at Tussauds

The wax statue of Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar will be unveiled at Madame Tussauds Museum in April, the first Indian sportsperson to be featured in one of London's famous tourist attraction.

Tendulkar will join the likes of filmstars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Salman Khan and former prime ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao who have been portrayed at the Madame Tussauds.

A spokeswoman of Madame Tussauds told PTI on Friday that Tendulkar, the world's highest run getter in Tests, will be the first Indian sportsperson to be featured at the world famous wax museum.

He joins other cricket legends like Brian Lara and Shane Warne to find a place there.

"Record breaking cricketer Sachin Tendulkar will be the latest sporting great featured at the internationally renowned Madame Tussauds London when a new wax figure of the Mumbai-born batsman joins the A-list line up in April," the spokeswoman said.

Tendulkar, who recently beat Lara's record as highest Test run getter, has already had a sitting with the Madame Tussauds studios team which travelled to Mumbai to capture a catalogue of reference photographs and over 200 precise measurements.

"We are delighted to confirm our next sporting superstar is going to be Sachin Tendulkar; his achievements on the cricket pitch are phenomenal and he is one of the biggest names in international sport," said Liz Edwards, Madame Tussauds' PR manager.

Tendulkar will be featured in typical celebratory "on the pitch" pose after another century marked in the scorebook. The statue will be in Sachin's cricket whites which he has kindly donated.

The figure will be created at Madame Tussauds stadios in West London at a cost of 150,000 pounds.

The Cricket star will be also joining the ranks of sporting greats past and present from David Beckham to Mohammed Ali, Tiger Woods to Jesse Owens in Madame Tussauds interactive sports Zone.

There will also be a cricketing challenge around the introduction of the figure, where guests can test their skills against the Master Blaster.