After India's defeat at Mumbai, the discussion is less about reasons for the
loss and more about why Tendulkar is being so rigid in retirement and not in a mood to call it a day.
.This line of thought also implies that England won because Tendulkar failed, and as long as he is playing India would continue to lose. Presuming for a moment that Tendulkar is not in the team, will it change anything? Will India become a transformed side and give England the licking we wanted our team to inflict on them? Will it compensate for the way we are structuring our cricket, where the riches of IPL and the havoc it plays with the genuine skills of the game is resulting in our losing even our home advantage.
Post the 2011 World Cup win, the signs that our Test team would plummet to a new low were to be seen everywhere. Have we done anything to correct this self-created imbalance, because of which it might be impossible to have an archetypal Test cricketer anymore?
Agreed the last time Sachin Tendulkar scored a century in Tests was way back against South Africa in January 2011.
Little Master, as he is known popularly, has been battling form with the bat and his highest score of the year 2012 is 80 that he made against Australia in Sydney. Such has been the struggle that his batting average in the last 10 innings has been a dismal 15.3. During this period he has scored just 153 runs. The calls for his retirement have gained momentum after his failures in the home matches as well.
A sporting environment where a Cheteshwar Pujara will be an aberration and not a norm, has been thrust upon us, but we are unwilling to look into the mirror and see what even a blind man won't be able to ignore.
Imagine being led in Test cricket by a man who lacks even the basics of what a quintessential Test player should be. A one-day champion can be a pauper in the longer version of the game and MS Dhoni is a classic example of that. But no, we are not interested in confronting these serious issues that have led to where we stand today.
For us, it is all about one man. Even if that man happens to be Sachin Tendulkar, the most idolised figure in the nation's sporting history.
We create heroes in a second and villains out of the same people the moment they fail. If that failure coincides with India's defeat, then not even God can save that man from being lynched.
In our pathological desire for seeking an object that should never fail, we invest our idols with powers even Gods would envy. For the past two decades, Tendulkar was that figure, who mocked at mortality, broke all cricketing barriers and filled that void in our life which makes us feel inadequate and limited. When we looked in the mirror, what stared back at us was not our own face but Tendulkar's, rock solid, immortal, one of us, but above all failures. A God-like figure, who strode the sporting world like no one had ever done.
Debate has got fire after the retirement of Ponting and crictics believe that he should hang his boots as well.Let him play in peace the man who has done so much for the game and the nation should be given the leverage to retire at his own terms.
.This line of thought also implies that England won because Tendulkar failed, and as long as he is playing India would continue to lose. Presuming for a moment that Tendulkar is not in the team, will it change anything? Will India become a transformed side and give England the licking we wanted our team to inflict on them? Will it compensate for the way we are structuring our cricket, where the riches of IPL and the havoc it plays with the genuine skills of the game is resulting in our losing even our home advantage.
Post the 2011 World Cup win, the signs that our Test team would plummet to a new low were to be seen everywhere. Have we done anything to correct this self-created imbalance, because of which it might be impossible to have an archetypal Test cricketer anymore?
Agreed the last time Sachin Tendulkar scored a century in Tests was way back against South Africa in January 2011.
Little Master, as he is known popularly, has been battling form with the bat and his highest score of the year 2012 is 80 that he made against Australia in Sydney. Such has been the struggle that his batting average in the last 10 innings has been a dismal 15.3. During this period he has scored just 153 runs. The calls for his retirement have gained momentum after his failures in the home matches as well.
A sporting environment where a Cheteshwar Pujara will be an aberration and not a norm, has been thrust upon us, but we are unwilling to look into the mirror and see what even a blind man won't be able to ignore.
Imagine being led in Test cricket by a man who lacks even the basics of what a quintessential Test player should be. A one-day champion can be a pauper in the longer version of the game and MS Dhoni is a classic example of that. But no, we are not interested in confronting these serious issues that have led to where we stand today.
For us, it is all about one man. Even if that man happens to be Sachin Tendulkar, the most idolised figure in the nation's sporting history.
We create heroes in a second and villains out of the same people the moment they fail. If that failure coincides with India's defeat, then not even God can save that man from being lynched.
In our pathological desire for seeking an object that should never fail, we invest our idols with powers even Gods would envy. For the past two decades, Tendulkar was that figure, who mocked at mortality, broke all cricketing barriers and filled that void in our life which makes us feel inadequate and limited. When we looked in the mirror, what stared back at us was not our own face but Tendulkar's, rock solid, immortal, one of us, but above all failures. A God-like figure, who strode the sporting world like no one had ever done.
Debate has got fire after the retirement of Ponting and crictics believe that he should hang his boots as well.Let him play in peace the man who has done so much for the game and the nation should be given the leverage to retire at his own terms.
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