Tendulkar set to retire

According to cricinfo, Tendulkar will retire after his 200th test.

Obviously a tremendous servant to the game, nothing I write can do justice to this player.

Time to resurrect the HoF thread so we can include him shortly?

A real great batsmen who will rightly go down as one of the best ever. Oddly, my first memory of him was a catch he took in the deep in 1990 against England.

Thanks for the memories and those delightful straight drives.

Quotes from the man on the cricinfo site. Seems about right - with him going after reaching such a landmark. Difficult to say if anyone will reach 200 Tests. It might be easier to do that, than reach his 15,000-plus aggregate.
Test cricket's greatest ever player? Probably.

Tendulkar has been pushed...and made to announce publicly...to avoid stress for those planning the SA trip.

Riddance from a big national liability, ultimately, eventually annd only about 2 years too late.
Rahane and Nayar from Mumbai are frontrunners to fill this Mumbai seat.

At his best he was the best in the world.....and amongst the all time greats...at his half best he was still an international quality batsman worth his salt....in the last two years he was a shadow at 10 percent  of his peak potential and was really scratching pathetically.......took a bit of sheen off an other wise glorious  career.

sirfredperry wrote:Quotes from the man on the cricinfo site. Seems about right - with him going after reaching such a landmark. Difficult to say if anyone will reach 200 Tests. It might be easier to do that, than reach his 15,000-plus aggregate.
  Test cricket's greatest ever player? Probably.

ODI's? Probably, but not tests, well not for me.

End of an era for Indian cricket. And a great one, too. Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly...but Tendulkar stands above the lot. As ridiculously a gifted batsman as you'll ever see.

I just wonder whether any single sportsman will ever know the adulation that Tendulkar did again?

Let's hope the old boy goes out with a century.

Just a wonderful player ... we have all been privileged to have seen him.

Echo Fists in hoping he finishes with a score...

Twould be nice if he could push the final total to 16,000 which will take some getting. I saw his first Test in England - at Lord's in 1990 - where he took the aforementioned amazing catch in the deep.
Later in that series, and looking ridiculously young, he made the first of his Test centuries.
I remember an 80-odd he got for Yorks at Uxbridge v Middx a couple of years later. He looked an old pro and made it seem so ludicrously easy. In fact, he was 19. Wonderful really that he has been able to go on for as long as he has. But all good things come to an end...

Fists of Fury wrote:End of an era for Indian cricket. And a great one, too. Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly...but Tendulkar stands above the lot. As ridiculously a gifted batsman as you'll ever see.

I just wonder whether any single sportsman will ever know the adulation that Tendulkar did again?

Let's hope the old boy goes out with a century.

Fists is spot on. Any assessment needs to consider not only Tendulkar's unique stats but also his unprecedented impact upon his own country and beyond.

I saw him playing on television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come look at him. Now I never saw myself play, but I felt that this player is playing with a style similar to mine, and she looked at him on Television and said yes, there is a similarity between the two...his compactness, technique, stroke production... it all seemed to gel!- Sir Donald Bradman
It is an emotional moment for each Indian, rather each cricket fan round the world.
I am 21, watching cricket since last 10 years. Well all my childhood and teen went on enjoying this Great man of this beautiful game. A domination like his, is least shown by many. Scoring tons of runs, this man will always be remembered as the greatest Ambassdor of the Game. Well I still have the opportunity to witness him for the one last time. Bye Sachin. I will surely miss something whenever Indian team will take gourd on the field.

I wish you a very happy and cheerful life ahead!!!!

Stella wrote:
ODI's? Probably, but not tests, well not for me.

Its bit emotional moment for each Indian cricket fan, so we do respect your views but please, we will better discuss on some other thread. No offence friend!!!

Angus Fraser, who had the misfortune to have had to bowl to both Lara and Tendulkar when steaming in for England, reckoned these two the best batsmen of his time.
  Fraser considered it was even harder to bowl at Lara than Tendulkar, as Sachin would block your best ball but Brian was just as likely to hit it for four.
  With a long and illustrious career like Tendulkar's there is always the thought that there are millions who have never known a time when he was not walking out to bat for India.
  Thankfully, there are always new heroes to come, as anyone who's seen their favourite player snapped up by another club will tell you. But after 100 international centuries and many magic moments, Sachin is going to be a hard act to follow.

All good things have to come to an end. Sachin Tendulkar is a cricketing phenomenon, and he's among the greatest ever players that the game has seen in its history. As Maike said, there is nothing much that I can write about that would be enough.
Just hoping that Tendulkar will turn the pages back a couple of times more before he leaves.

Lets hope he goes out with a bang, not a Bradman  

Well that will close the chapter of a fantastic career. There are no words strong enough to describe Sachin's career, so it would be futile to try.

Have a happy retirement Sachin, you have most definitely earnt it, and will have a long and beautiful career to look back on.

Correct me if Im wrong: but his last Test century was in 2011 vs South Africa, no? He was fantastic that tour, Probably the difference between a 1-1 draw and a 3-0 demolition job. Probably the last series in which he was at his zenith.

SRT was indeed fantastic in that series. Not sure I'd call him the difference between 1-1 and 3-0 though as he had very little to contribute in the 1 Test that we won. VVS won us that Durban Test with an absolute masterclass, probably the greatest "non hundred" test knock ever (if that makes sense) on a brute of a wicket. You could say SRT was the difference between 1-1 and 2-1 however, though the same can be said of Kallis from a South African perspective as we had them on the mat in the 2nd innings at Cape Town before the great man, playing with an injured hand, produced a gem of a hundred, his 2nd in the match and 3rd in the series, to take SA to safety and to a position from which they could realistically win the match, before India batted out the 5th day rather comfortably.

I am not a Sachin fan but he certainly is the greatest player of Modern era, Bradman is pre-modern era. Sachin at his best is the best, but yes last 2 years has been real bad, he should have quit after the emotional World Cup win.

Echoing my thoughts this article on CI....albeit in kinder words:

A farewell left too lateTendulkar's legacy has been diminished by his long twilight, and the team he served for so long with such distinction has been damaged too

Mukul Kesavan

October 14, 2013



In the last year of his Test career, Lara scored two hundreds and two doubles. Tendulkar hasn't made a century since January 2011 © BCCI




Hang on, he hasn't left yet. The time to pay tribute, to lift our eyes from the here and now and celebrate a great career, to memorialise genius, will come when Sachin Tendulkar's cricketing life ends with the second Test against West Indies in late November. This is the time to debate the manner of his going, the timing of the departure. And no, it isn't bad form to do this: Tendulkar is an active player; embalming fluids like reverence and nostalgia can wait.

The last great Bombay batsman retired without notice. He played one of the great innings against spin bowling on a pitch that turned square, 96 in a losing cause against Pakistan in Bangalore and left. He was 37. He was in the form of his life: his last 25 outings had yielded four centuries and six fifties at an average of over 58.

Tendulkar's retirement, in contrast, has been chronically foretold. Not by him but by his bearish batting form. In his last 25 innings Tendulkar has scored four fifties, no centuries, and has averaged under 30, more than 20 runs off his career average. He is 40; he has been in decline for at least two years.

Over the last two years Tendulkar has been more accountant than artist. His ledger is filled with entries that tally quantity and longevity. He has a 100 international hundreds, over 34,000 international runs, and by the time the Wankhede Test is done, he will have become the first cricketer in the history of the game to have played 200 Test matches.

Over the last two years he has plodded towards these landmarks with all the flair of a time-serving journeyman. From being a batsman who brought to the crease the intent of Viv Richards in a rage, he has become a batsman as intent on self-preservation as Boycott batting out a bad patch.

Does it matter? He remains the greatest batsman of his generation and India under Dhoni are once again near the top of the Test match tree. Tendulkar carried India, so the argument goes, for more than 20 years: can't India carry him for two?

No. It can and has, but it shouldn't have. Children ought to be indulged, not great men, and Tendulkar is an immortal. These two years have damaged Tendulkar, the Indian team and cricket as an international game.

Kapil Dev prolonged his career painfully as he chased after Richard Hadlee's then-record aggregate of wickets. By the time he huffed and puffed his way past the mark, a career marked by loose-limbed grace had begun to seem a little laboured and leaden. And for what? With Murali on his Everest, Kapil's summit begins to look like base camp. In much the same way, Tendulkar's legacy has been diminished by his long twilight.

Most importantly, if Tendulkar had retired earlier, India might not be playing an unscheduled two-Test engagement against West Indies at the expense of a proper Test series against South Africa, Test cricket's top-ranked team. It is no secret that this attenuated "series" against one of the less formidable Test sides in contemporary cricket was likely dreamt up by the BCCI to give Tendulkar a comfortable way of both getting to his 200th Test and saying farewell at home.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/679265.html

Clearly Sachin has not been at his best of late. But this should not - and won't, I trust - affect his legacy.
Few, when they recall Wally Hammond, remember he hardly made a run in his final Test series against Australia.
Similarly, Pete Sampras went two years without a swingle torunament win on the tennis circuit before coming up with a another triumph at the 2002 US Open.
Federer is now having a career-end wobble, although he hasn't called it a day yet, and could still, hopefully for his enormous fan base, finish with a flourish.
With all the above there are/will be no * asterix against their names in the record books denoting they had poor runs in their twilight.

sirfredperry wrote:Clearly Sachin has not been at his best of late. But this should not - and won't, I trust - affect his legacy.
  Few, when they recall Wally Hammond, remember he hardly made a run in his final Test series against Australia.
  Similarly, Pete Sampras went two years without a swingle torunament win on the tennis circuit before coming up with a another triumph at the 2002 US Open.
  Federer is now having a career-end wobble, although he hasn't called it a day yet, and could still, hopefully for his enormous fan base, finish with a flourish.
  With all the above there are/will be no * asterix against their names in the record books denoting they had poor runs in their twilight.

 
when you recall Hammond, Federer; sampras....you do recollect their dragged ends....even someone as late back as Hammond's plight is not missed by you.
 
Similarly those who watched Tendulkar will know how miserably he dragged himself for a few more years of endorsements and statistics and dragged his team down throuhg those years.........as is remebered Kapil dev by those who wtached him limp to Hadlee's record ( and noted by the writer here)....ditto the sights of the sorry plight of a powerless Miandad struggling to clear mid-on even when hitting with full strength.... in 1996 world cup....and Waqar trundling at medium pace scaring no-body like a toothless tiger in his end days......or the sorry sight of stylish Vishwanath struggling to put bat to ball in his last year and a half ....or the gentle medium bits and pieces type  player that the former great allrounder Botham appeared in the 1992 world cup in Aus.
 
you are right Fifty years later, when dust has settled and from contemporary Tendulkar has gone into posterity...many who did not follow the sorry end of Tendulkar and others....would not even know the end was blemished.
 
But there are several who have see the sorry dragged end of these greats.....who will remember and talk while we are alive......
Maybe it doesn't bother many of these greats........
 
But if I was them it would bother me and I would rather go out like a Gavaskar, Warne, Donald, Dravid......when I wasn't being carried by the team as a dead load on charity/ gratitude.....or purely on memories of the old days...

IIRC Sampras won the last grand slam he played, the 2002 US Open. Federer would be a better comparison. Not yet retired but I don't see him winning another major. Ironically, he's a good friend of Sachin. Well, Well, Well!

Difference between Federer and Sachin. The former is still one of the best around, whereas Sachin was living off past glories. This is not an attempt at knocking the great man, btw.

KPFan - Ta for the Kapil Dev reminder. I'd forgotten how he was dribbling along at one-wicket-per-Test-or-two-if-he-was-lucky mode until he achieved the Test wicket record.
  It was not very pretty. But the fact that I'd pretty much erased it from the memory bank shows that an entire career achievement stays longer with you than a comparatively-poor ending.
   Spose we should consider those who went out at the VERY top. Borg and Henin (well, at least the second-time around) spring to mind. Greg Chappell got a 100 in his last Test and looked good for plenty more years. Bradman was still making loads of 100s in his last tour (funny how the duck at The Oval somehow ENHANCED his reputation). Harold Wilson, Tony Blair (hold on, who did they play for ?)

Michael Hussey to be added to that list I guess sirfred.

I think the focus on the 2 years is a bit disingenuous, because Tendulkar was India's form batsman during their tour to Australia in 2011-12 and got a lot of good scores without ever going on to get a big one. He'd also got a few scores in England although Anderson had worked him over a bit (but Anderson was on fire then). Certainly nobody sensible was suggesting he should be dropped then (were they?) - there was much focus on Dravid (who was bowled x times suggesting his eye had gone a bit) and Laxman (whose reflexes seemed to have slowed and had also struggled big time in England).

Since that series, Tendulkar has played 10 tests. He struggled hugely against New Zealand (IIRC he was bowled every time in that series) and only has a couple of 50s in that time.

However it's hard to say when he could have retired or been dropped? After the England series? the home Aus one? Possibly, but that's a big big call to make.

Suggestions that 10 poor tests at the end of his career could somehow affect his legacy are a bit silly IMO.

KP_fan - I think you have something of a point that Tendulkar's retirement could have been earlier although - as so often seems to be the case, from my readings of your posts - you overegg the pudding.

Yes, it may be a blip and go into the mix when all things are considered. However, at worst, it is surely no more than a minor blemish on an outstanding career. In the words of Sir Fred, ''this should not - and won't I trust - affect his legacy.''

This leads me to the matter of just how incredibly difficult it is to judge the timing of retirement. I agree with you - say, in the example of Kapil Dev - that staying around to chase individual stats is saddening and contrary to the whole meaning of a team game. However, I'm not so sure that bailing at the height of one's powers - with the consequence that an individual average is protected for all time, whether intended or not - has that much to commend it. Surely, it is better to stay and help the team even if your own individual prowess is not quite what it once was.

Great credit in my book goes to Collingwood and Hoggard for returning to the English county game after they had been thanked and dispatched from international cricket. Collingwood has been and remains mighty successful at that level. Hoggard could never reproduce former glories and has recently announced his retirement; in some ways that was belated but I still admire him for trying to kick on as long as he could. By contrast (and apologies for switching not only away from cricket but also a team game), Borg fails my test of greatness as he didn't stay around long enough and chose to walk away too soon.

The main point I'm trying to make here is that the right time to retire can only be judged with complete certainty once that time has already gone. I wouldn't hold staying on for a bit too long against many and definitely not Tendulkar.

There is a lot of personality traits like esteem, pride, ego and image-conciousness that come into play...when a star-performer decides to bow-out.

--Gavasakr left scoring 188 in the MCC vs. world XI ( serious match) as his last FC and a 96 in his last test
--Dravid scored 3 hundreds in England averaging 55ish when all around him fell much cheaply in his pre-final series
--VVSL declined the 2 test farewell offered to him against NZ by BCCI.
--Richard Hadlee till his last day as a bowler was his countries top and one of world's leading seamer...5-fer in the last inning and 8-fer in his last test.

These guys knew in their hearts...that they had enouhg gas in the tank to do one more season or anotehr series or two.

BUT their ego, the self-esteem their professional pride did not want them to be seen as below peak at the end even for a series...inspite of knowing that their star-power and form can unquestionably pull them on....they didn't want even their momentary image to be tarnished.

Such performers align with my view of "how to bow-out"
then there are others like ones discussed on this thread....who drag on......without the ego/esteem thing inside biting them..

It's not a crime...their ego /esteeem is not hurt......so I guess it's OK for them.

I think Mike's point about Sachin being good enough in England and Australia is an important one. He really did struggle in the last home season, with the crucial 81 in the first test against Australia being the only reflection of his real class. He did score a fighting 76 against England, but it was an innings of struggle through and through.
Perhaps Sachin will indeed go out on a high in the last series that he plays, and we can forget the real struggles of last year after that.

Personally think he should've gone after the home series against England. Mike's point about him being just about okay in Eng and Aus in 2011 is fair enough but certainly don't think his performances in those 2 series justify him playing the home series vs Oz after looking quite horrific against NZ and England at home. If he had done brilliantly in England or Australia, then you could say that dropping him after 2 awful home series would've been premature but his performances in those 2 countries were only okay relative to his teammates. But by playing the home series against Australia earlier this year and these 2 upcoming tests, I think his retirement has come 6 Tests too late. These 6 Tests could easily have been given to a youngster to bed him in before the SA tour. Oh Well!
Any road up, agree with Mike that Sachin's legacy shouldn't be determined by the last 2 years of his career. Most of the greats have tended to play on for too long.

I don't know why so much of discussion is going on on his call off. It was he who gave us a pleasant decade, some most special moments and when he is not to that mark which he himself has created. Well this is the time for support to this great man. Going through this forum, I have seen many great names are coming and one name is of Federer. Remember guys, what so ever be the class of Djokovic or Murray or Nadal, they have never dominated tennis as once was done by Federer. For now he has given much to the game. It is unfair to expect more. Just enjoy his game and he will surely give a moment of joy till his end. SAme with tendy.

I don't wanna start a tennis discussion here but for me, Nadal is a better player than Federer. He has a positive H2H record against almost every player he's played, including Federer against whom he has won nearly 70% of their encounters. Federer also has a losing record against Murray. Yes, its true that Federer has won more grand slams but that IMO is because he played in a weak era when he started off and often got to face average players like Roddick in the final. Federer's H2H record against Nadal gives you a better picture IMO.

ShankyCricket wrote:I don't wanna start a tennis discussion here but ....

Don't worry about it, Shanky. I had an online chat yesterday with another poster on the Surrey Supporters' website about English football managers and coaches of the 1970s - that thread started off with Graham Ford's appointment!