It is sad. Not his retirement. That had to happen one day and not too far in the future irrespective of any thing else. It is sad the way it has unfolded.
Its quite likely that someone, maybe as high as Pawar himself, may have had a quiet word with him so that he makes the announcement before the selectors meet. If so it must have been heart wrenching for the little fellow.
Ideally he should have announced his retirement the moment India won the world cup.If he had hit a hundred in that final, who knows he may have done it but I suspect the struggle to get that last three figure knock really tortured him and he was not prepared to go without a big bang. The fact that he had to finally play that tournament and get the hundred against Bangladesh had to rankle for he has studiously avoided playing much against our Eastern neighbours in the past skipping many opportunities to fatten his figures. This was not the place he wanted his cherished record to come at.
Why retire from ODI's ?
Since the world cup finals where he, once again took India right up to the last hurdle but faltered for a second time in the finals, Sachin has played 10 ODI and 30 Test innings averaging 31.5 and 31.7 respectively. One hundred and a fifty in ODI's and 7 fifties in Tests shows it has not been a great time in either. He could have retired from both if those figures were the criteria. He wont be god enough to play for India in either format unless he makes some sort of a come back in terms of form and performance in terms of runs.
Does age matter more in an ODI than in Tests. I am not so sure as far as batting goes and in fielding Sachin continues to be close to where he has been for all these years. One suspects the choice may, at least partly, have to do with what team India needs.
With Dravid and Laxman gone recently and Ganguly a bit earlier and with the youngsters (barring Pujara) struggling and the openers nowhere near their form of a couple of years back, India could do with a resurgent Sachin in Tests much more than in the ODI's or so conventional logic suggests.
However, the practical problem related to age and watching Sachin play of late suggests that his footwork is failing which generally means he is not picking up the line and length early enough. This, in his case, would almost invariably be linked to slowing reflexes and hence age. In the shorter format there is a degree of pre-determination in batting which makes up for the reflexes/footwork related issues. Sachin may find it difficult to come back in Test matches against stronger attacks on sporting wickets. He may need to put in much more work and, as I have suggested before, play more first class cricket to have a better chance. Of course, against relatively easier attacks and batting tracks he could still ratchet up the odd big score but then so could the next man who will benefit from it in the long run.
Its a tough call for the great man and lets hope he uses this to find the right time to leave the Test arena. One would not want to be denied the pleasure of knowing when and where that would be and being present to bid him a formal adieu as has happened in the case of ODI's.
)..**** he was the only world-beater we would brag about when i was growing up and to put it in context out of 1.2 billion population so the extreme reaction by the fans i suppose..So long Sachin Thanks for the memories..An yes the Greatest of all time and i don't care about style,statistics and some other variables but my heart saying it...
@ the Obama one.
