Tendulkar will be available for entire IPL: MI

Sachin Tendulkar will be available to play the entire duration of the upcoming Indian Premier League after returning from London, where he has gone for medical consultation of a toe injury, a Mumbai Indians spokesman said. 

"I can categorically say Sachin Tendulkar [captain of Mumbai Indians] is available for the entire duration of the IPL. He has gone to London just for consultation [about his toe injury] and is scheduled to be back on March 31. There is no question of any surgery," he said.

"He will also be there for the opening ceremony [on April 2] at Chennai and for the opening encounter [on April 4 against defending champions Chennai Super Kings]," the spokesman added. 

The clarification came after PTI learnt from a source in the Board of Control for Cricket in India that the champion batsman's return, after his consultation with a specialist in London, is uncertain as surgery may be needed, and would put a question mark on his participation for the entire duration of the Twenty20 League. 

"Yes, Sachin Tendulkar has gone to London for consultation about his toe injury. 

"He has been playing with this injury for long. It is not sure when he will return, as even a surgery may be needed to correct it," a BCCI source had told PTI on Wednesday.

The Indian Premier League will commence on April 4 in Chennai, where Tendulkar's Mumbai Indians, last year's runners-up take on defending champions Chennai Super Kings at the M A Chidambaram Stadium. 

Tendulkar, who notched his 100th international ton in the recently-concluded Asia Cup, did not attend the BCCI-organised felicitation function of retired batsman Rahul Dravid on Tuesday evening at a hotel near his residence, as he had already left for England.

The toe injury is a decade old, but it resurfaced to haunt him and upset his plans of playing the ODI series in England last September after a not-too-successful run in the four-Test series that preceded it. 

He was withdrawn from the team sheet before the first ODI, which was washed out. And then the BCCI issued a statement, saying Tendulkar was ruled out of the series "due to a toe injury".

Tendulkar consulted a specialist in London after suffering the injury and was advised four weeks' rest. 

He came back to play the Test rubber against the West Indies at home after missing the Champions League Twenty20, which was won by Mumbai Indians under stand-in-skipper Harbhajan Singh. 

But after playing the Test series against the Windies Tendulkar again opted to rest for the ODIs. 

He went to Australia with an advance party of senior players, including captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dravid and VVS Laxman to get acclimatised to the conditions Down Under when the limited-overs' series against the West Indies was in progress.