“If Cricket is a Religion, Sachin is God”, this quote used to be favourite a couple of seasons back for cricket lovers and die-hard fans of Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar. However, the back-to- back dismal performances by Tendulkar in last two tests against England and also in the recent past has compelled the followers to change their religion as their ‘God’ Tendulkar failed to save the team India. I am not here to criticise world’s best proven cricketer and winners of countless national and international awards. In his 23-year-old cricket career Tendulkar has made many records in both formats ODIs (One Day Internationals) as well as test including maximum number of Man of the Match Awards.
But after 10 wickets defeat of India against England at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai once again Tendulkar faced severe criticism due to his poor scoring of 8 runs in both the innings. Even in first test of the series at Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad the little master scored only 13 runs. The cricket lovers, fans and experts didn’t criticised Tendulkar much for the Ahmedabad debacle as team India won the match. On Monday (November 26, 2012) the patience of all crossed limits and even the followers of Cricket as religion thought to change the religion as their ‘God’ miserably failed before the English spinner Monty Panesar.
If we see the record book, Tendulkar’s last 10 Test innings have yielded just 153 runs at an average of 15.3 per inning. Fact is that Sachin's last century came in January 2011, against South Africa in Cape Town, and since then he has got out twice in 90s and once in 80s. And he has hasn't scored a half-century in the last ten innings.
The figures obviously raise the calls for Sachin’s retirement and create doubts in his followers mind. At the meantime, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCC) says the maestro will himself decide when it is time to go. BCCI official Rajiv Shukla in his address to media said, “He will hang up his boots when he thinks it’s time for him to go. He does not need any advice on this. Before making a comment on his performance you have to see his colossal record and his past performance. “Even veteran cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar came forward in support of Sachin Tendulkar.
The irony is that Tendulkar is a ‘God’ like figure for cricket lovers and his fans, but this is the time to think about the future of Indian cricket about which a majority of people in the country are crazy. There is no any doubt that Tendulkar can’t make a come back or score a hundred. But howlong we can wait for that and how many innings Tendulkar will take. It will be totally unjustified if we wait for the good time to come. Tendulkar is already in 40s and he has plenty of cricket behind him in his around 25 year cricket career. While dependable batsmen like Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman who are no less contributors to the India Batting story bid adieu and vacated the place for new comers, why Tendulkar is not having such a great heart? It seems there is some sort of biasness towards Tendulkar and the BCCI seems overly reluctant to make up its mind on Sachin’s future although Sachin himself indicated in a recent television interview that he was unlikely to play the next World Cup.
