In the biggest tournament in the format, Tendulkar was usually at his best. His overall World Cup tally of 2278 is the best, and he is also the only batsman to twice aggregate more than 500 in a World Cup tournament - he scored 673 in 2003, a record for a single World Cup, and 523 in 1996. Only four other batsmen have touched 500 even once in a World Cup. Tendulkar's nine Man-of-the-Match awards is also a World Cup record, three clear of the second-placed Glenn McGrath.
Apart from his World Cup heroics, Tendulkar also finished with a great record in tournament finals, though there was a period between 1999 and 2004 when he appeared to struggle in them. Overall he averaged more than 54 in tournament finals, with six hundreds in 39 innings.
| Batsman | Innings | Runs | Average | Strike rate | 100s/ 50s |
| Viv Richards | 21 | 1013 | 63.31 | 85.05 | 3/ 5 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 44 | 2278 | 56.95 | 88.98 | 6/ 15 |
| Herschelle Gibbs | 23 | 1067 | 56.15 | 87.38 | 2/ 8 |
| Sourav Ganguly | 21 | 1006 | 55.88 | 77.50 | 4/ 3 |
| Mark Waugh | 22 | 1004 | 52.84 | 83.73 | 4/ 4 |
| Jacques Kallis | 32 | 1148 | 45.92 | 74.40 | 1/ 9 |
| Ricky Ponting | 42 | 1743 | 45.86 | 79.95 | 5/ 6 |
| Javed Miandad | 30 | 1083 | 43.32 | 68.02 | 1/ 8 |
| Brian Lara | 33 | 1225 | 42.24 | 86.26 | 2/ 7 |