To retire or not
Is it time for Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and V. V. S. Laxman to hang their boots, asks Sunil Narula

Most cricketers in the current Indian team want that they should be left alone to decide when they want to retire. Most former players and dozens of experts are also of the same opinion. “Just leave them alone. They will know when to retire.” That seems to be the unanimous opinion.

This brings us to a crucial question facing the Indian team. Should the likes of Rahul Dravid, V. V. S. Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar be left alone to decide on when they want to retire? Of course, they have been great players, playing for India for a number of years (longer than they should have been, actually). But again they are only players. And they are not bigger than the game.

Indian players in the Grade-A category of the BCCI are paid Rs 1 crore each annually. This amount is paid just as retainer. In addition to it are the match fees, their share of the cash awards, a lion’s share of the TV commercials (for which most cricketers charge a bomb). 

For example, if a corporate company wants Sachin Tendulkar to be their brand ambassador for the next five years, it pays a gargantuan amount for it. But then these companies also have their own riders in these contracts (like this deal may be valid for the said amount only if the player in question continues to part of the Indian ODI and Test team for that duration of time.  Nobody wants to put money on an ex-player. So, chances of any player relinquishing such kind of money on his own are nil. Any cricketer will want to cling on to all this for as long as he can.

Rahul Dravid (L) and V. V. S. Laxman are no longer young. It is time for them to move on

Someone like Kapil Dev should know it better than others. He kept on playing just to get to his world record of Test wickets. And played way past his prime. So it is strange that he should feel strongly about the fact that the time has come for Sachin Tendulkar to retire from ODIs at least (as a first step).

“From what we have seen in the last three months, he (Sachin) should have announced his retirement after the World Cup or even earlier. It’s important to know that every cricketer has his time. Having served India for 22-23 years, there surely is no greater cricketer than him. But he should have announced his decision to retire from the shorter format soon after the World Cup,” Kapil was quoted as saying recently. “May be his time has come. Every player has his time. He is 39-40 years now. Age is not on his side as it was earlier,” added Kapil Dev. 

“There is no denying that the likes of Rahul, Sachin and Laxman have served the nation like a very few other cricketers. But they are no longer young, and if Indian cricket does not move forward from the Big Three, it will risk falling a generation back and struggle like West Indies and Australian teams have done in the past,” feels Dev.

Personally, for a great player like Tendulkar, either there’s the first place and there’s no place. He has been at the top for so long now, and it is sad that people have started talking about him overstaying his welcome in the Indian team. And like a great player he should go when people are still asking “Why”? And not when people are saying “Why not”?

Earlier experts were saying when the likes of Ricky Ponting are still playing for the Australian team why cannot Sachin (who is only 39) still be there in both Tests and ODIs teams for India. Now even that argument seems to have taken a beating with Cricket Australia dropping Ponting from their ODI team and Ponting himself announcing his retirement from ODIs.

Sachin Tendulkar has not given any statement, and it appears that he wants to keep on playing both in the ODIs and Test matches. He also wants to keep playing in the T20 IPL for Mumbai Indians. He is not getting any younger. Even when you are in your prime, as a player you have your good days and bad days on the field. But this is the hard parts of getting older. There are more bad days.

It is the job of the Indian selectors (the five of them Rs 40 lakh each annually) to think about the future of the team and convey to seniors like Sachin Tendulkar that it is in the best interest of everyone concerned they should reduce their commitments and use their waning energies wisely and well. Just because there is no replacement for Tendulkar (and there never will be one), it does not mean he should keep playing till 2050. Even Don Bradman had to retire. In fact, Bradman needed just four runs in his last innings to average 100 in Test matches and he got out for a duck. Even he could have postponed his decision to retire and played for a little longer to achieve the magical average of 100. But he did not do that because the time had come for him to move on.

In India, too, for some of its greats, the time has come to move on.