India vs Australia: Top 5 players fastest to 9000 ODI runs

#5 Sachin Tendulkar (235 innings)

It took Sachin Tendulkar 235 ODI innings to get to 9000 ODI runs which might be a surprise to some people. But, Tendulkar was not an opening batsman at the start of his career. He started opening the batting for India only after he played 70-odd ODI games.

Tendulkar used to bat at no. 5 and no. 6 in the initial few years of his ODI career and wasn’t as fluent a scorer back then as he turned out to be later in his career.

When Tendulkar was given the opportunity to open the batting for India because of an injury to Navjot Singh Sidhu, his ODI career just took off and he never looked back.

The Mumbaikar holds most of the ODI batting records at the moment. He is the leading run-scorer of all time in 50-over cricket and has also scored the most number of ODI hundreds. The 46-year old scored 18,426 runs in 463 ODIs he played for India at an average of 44.83 with 49 centuries and 96 half-centuries.

He played his last ODI against the arch-rival Pakistan in March 2012.