Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar predicts that Sachin Tendulkar will hang up his helmet at the end of the England Test series later this year.
Tendulkar and Gavaskar share a very similar place in the hearts of cricket fans and in the pantheon of greats to have ever played the game, but the latter thinks that Tendulkar will be alongside him in retirement before the year is out.
“I think he himself said that he is going to make a call on the state of his career at the end of the England series,” said Gavaskar, who was in Dubai on Tuesday night to launch the new Danube Lions corporate outdoor cricket team at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
“So I guess we wait from the man himself. It’s very hard to put yourself in someone else’s body and someone else’s mind and feel and think what he is thinking.
“He has had such a long career of 23 years. It won’t just be India’s problem [when he retires] but world cricket’s problem. He is such an entertaining player in all forms of the game, he has entertained the whole world, when he decides to finish it’s going to be a sad day for world cricket.”
In his playing days that ended just before the emergence of Tendulkar, Gavaskar was the highest scoring Test player of all-time and was the first player to pass the 10,000 Test-run mark.
Since then, Tendulkar has shattered those records en route becoming the top-scoring batsmen, in both Test and ODIs, and the first man in history to chalk up 100 international centuries.
But Gavaskar bares no grudges. “I think it got to a stage that I was more relieved than him when he broke my records. There was so much expectation on when he was going to get this century or this century, that I think that I may have been more happy [when he reached 100 centuries].”
Tendulkar isn’t the only star on the verge of retirement, but at least he is unlikely to leave the team on anyone else’s terms, unlike his compatriot MS Dhoni who is under severe pressure to step down as captain.
As a former captain, Gavaskar thinks that consistency in all forms of the game should be considered when picking a captain. “First and foremost, the captain should be picked from the best possible team and they should pick the best player who is an automatic choice,” he said.
“We can’t have a player [be captain] who comes in and out of the squad. So if Dhoni is the automatic choice for T20, ODI and Tests, then [he is the right man].”
The places of veterans like Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan have come into question with age wearing away at them. Gavaskar doesn’t expect India to replace such an esteemed group overnight and warned Indian fans that a transition period is inevitable.
“It’s a scary to have so many good players going away,” said Gavaskar, “What cricket has always shown is that replacements will always be coming in. It might not be in the sense that a player goes out and other comes in, but you have seen it there is a transition period, and we will see India go through a transition period. By 2014, we’ll probably have a completely new team.”
India weren’t able to impress in the World T20, failing to make the semi-finals. While many have blamed India’s slow bowling attack, Gavaskar thinks stars like Sehwag were held back more by a lack of practise.
“I think Sehwag was out of practise. India were in their off season and had played a bit of cricket in August but there was a time lag. Some players were bound to be rusty and think was the case with Sehwag,” said Gavaskar.
“The part time bowlers picked up wickets, kept the runs down,” he added. “I think it was a failure of the team not being able to get it together.
“If you look at the West Indies team, you will find it was a team effort. The main man in the finals was supposed to be Chris Gayle, but he was out in 16 balls, so Samuels stepped up and hit 15 in the final over. Everybody came together, especially in the field.”
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