scoring opener Sachin Tendulkar and fellow batsman Virender Sehwag will be rested for India's third and final One-Day International against South Africa in Ahmedabad Saturday, the Indian cricket board said in a statement. Tendulkar became the first batsman to score a double century in ODIs Wednesday, his 200 not out setting up India's 153-run win at Gwalior and a winning 2-0 lead in the series. Sehwag played in the Gwalior match despite suffering from a sore back which he sustained during the opening game. Squad: Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni (captain), S. Raina, Rohit Sharma, Y. Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Sudeep Tyagi, S. Sreesanth, Ravichandran Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Abhimanyu Mithun and Ashish Nehra. India's President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, led the accolades to Sachin Tendulkar Thursday, a day after the batsman became the first player to score a double century in One-Day International cricket. The 36-year-old was also lauded by television channels which ran special programs while newspapers ran front page stories marking his feat. Former players also paid tribute to the right-hander, who hit 25 fours and three sixes in an 147-ball knock that combined poise with power to add another record in his impressive career. “Given that Sachin Tendulkar is the first man in history to get to the mark in his 21st year of international cricket, with mind and body intact through astonishing pressure and responsibility, makes the feat all the more laudable,” former India captain Anil Kumble wrote in the Hindustan Times. Sunil Gavaskar, the first man to score 10,000 Test runs, was also amazed at Tendulkar's ability to keep producing records. “There is a little boy in Tendulkar who wants to keep playing. That spirit keeps him going. It's absolutely incredible how he keeps going,” said Gavaskar. “A lot of others with his record would have had called it enough. But I guess there is no word called enough in Tendulkar's dictionary.”
