In Mahabharata, the great Indian Epic, there’s this story of King Yayaati borrowing youth from his son Puru to continue enjoying all the pleasures a King of his position could command. Is Sachin too, eating into careers of promising youngsters like Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Pujara etc.?
What else can be said when Sachin decides to return to play against a pedestrian England team? And look what happened? Who had to sit out the Bangalore ODI? Young Rohit Sharma, who played a very crucial Innings when India were stuttering while chasing a D/L target in the earlier match. Rohit had shown lot of promise on the trip down under and needs to be given confidence. Instead, he is being shunted in and out of the team and his position in the batting order too, is frequently being moved up and down. This may ruin his career but so what Sachin’s pile of runs will keep on increasing!
Does Indian team really need Sachin now? Frankly not – at least in ODI’s and certainly not while playing in India and most definitely not against this England side. This present ODI team has done well in last six months. In Asia cup, against Sri Lanka and half way through this series against England. All without Sachin. Even on his return, one really expected Sachin voluntarily bat down the order thereby keeping the Sehwag – Gambhir partnership, which has been very fruitful in last one year, keeping going. This much of a sacrifice was expected from the great man. But he chose not to.
What else can be said when Sachin decides to return to play against a pedestrian England team? And look what happened? Who had to sit out the Bangalore ODI? Young Rohit Sharma, who played a very crucial Innings when India were stuttering while chasing a D/L target in the earlier match. Rohit had shown lot of promise on the trip down under and needs to be given confidence. Instead, he is being shunted in and out of the team and his position in the batting order too, is frequently being moved up and down. This may ruin his career but so what Sachin’s pile of runs will keep on increasing!
Does Indian team really need Sachin now? Frankly not – at least in ODI’s and certainly not while playing in India and most definitely not against this England side. This present ODI team has done well in last six months. In Asia cup, against Sri Lanka and half way through this series against England. All without Sachin. Even on his return, one really expected Sachin voluntarily bat down the order thereby keeping the Sehwag – Gambhir partnership, which has been very fruitful in last one year, keeping going. This much of a sacrifice was expected from the great man. But he chose not to.
In tests yes Sachin Tendulkar does have role to play for at least a year. Especially with Ganguly gone and Dravid almost certainly will go. But even in Test as well as ODI, what more really can he achieve in may be another year or so? A few more Hundreds may be. But what kind of difference it will make to his already huge stature? The records? He already hold every record in the book, which even he should know are going to be broken one day or the other. So why kep going?
Even after having achieved everything under the sun, what makes Sachin crave for more? In that Mahabharata story, Yayaati was reluctant to return youth to his son even after thousand years! Sachin too, is reluctant to call it quits even after glorious cricketing life for nearly two decades and denying promising youngsters to showcase their talent.
Even after having achieved everything under the sun, what makes Sachin crave for more? In that Mahabharata story, Yayaati was reluctant to return youth to his son even after thousand years! Sachin too, is reluctant to call it quits even after glorious cricketing life for nearly two decades and denying promising youngsters to showcase their talent.
malhar ...i wonder when i see the people like u criticising sachin on behalf of some failures or missing some ODI's but just tell me one thing why should sachin sit outside when he is playing far better cricket than the other players...the biggest ODI's victory came in australia just because of 2 great innings in finals from sachin and i think at that time sachin had given answer to all his critics but one thing i agree with u is that young players should give chance but not at all on the cost of sachin when we know he is not having much cricket but pls let him play till he wants to play and be patient he'll quit cricket when the right time will come .
ReplyDeleteHi Mayank! Thanks for your views. Actually this is not about criticising but expecting a big hearted decision from a great man like Sachin. I feel it is high time for him to hand ober the reigns to younger brigade and bask in his hard earned glory!
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