Is it time for Sachin Tendulkar to retire from international cricket? Only he will know whether he still has what it takes to get out of a prolonged form slump but from the outside, he looks a far removed cricketer from the man who has set so many records over the years.
Even some of his most sympathetic supporters and staunchest defenders over the years now believe that the time is right for him to step aside, leaving supporters with the good memories without diluting them by playing on for too long.
It must be a difficult position to be in. It must be hard to give up the thing you love and what makes you proudest of all but unlike VVS Laxman and others before him, Tendulkar is unlikely to be shown the door. It will be up to him to decide when to go, putting him in what is perhaps a unique position. Even Brian Lara always intended to go after the 2007 World Cup, regardless of the result. Ricky Ponting’s situation was different – he would have been asked to step aside and Andrew Strauss realised that his form would have raised the sort of questions that Tendulkar is now facing so made the decision to retire before it became a serious issue.
To further complicate matters, he is the last of the big four (Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman being the others) to go and you could make a strong case for keeping an in-form Tendulkar in India’s side to help the youngsters progress as a new side is shaped. It isn’t helping anybody for Indian cricket to be in dire straits with a lack of proven talent coming through, results not being delivered, and only Cheteshwar Pujara genuinely taking their chance and looking assured at the highest level.
Had Virat Kohli scored plenty of runs against England, for example, or had Yuvraj taken his opportunity, then perhaps Tendulkar’s mind would have been made up already. Had he himself scored some runs we wouldn’t even be talking about his retirement. This set of events has come together and forced the issue of Tendulkar’s retirement to the surface.
It is also somewhat ironic that when Dravid and Ganguly retired from Twenty20 cricket in 2007, calling it a young man’s game, they couldn’t have imagined that five years later, it would be the only arena in which they would feature. That is where Tendulkar’s future also lies, if he so chooses. The question on everybody’s lips is when?