Should he or shouldn't he?

The R-word has once again come to haunt Sachin Tendulkar. Both WC winning captains for India have directly and indirectly pressed for the Master Blaster’s retirement from the ODIs. Kapil Dev, in a recent interview was very vocal about his opinion and Dhoni, in several press conferences has mentioned that Sachin is a slow fielder and that age is catching up with him. So is it the right time to retire for Sachin?

All Sachinists across the world (including myself) would want to see Sachin play till his last breath but that is not possible. He has to retire sooner or later. A look at different factors will help in knowing whether he should retire or not.

• Love and Passion

“The day I don’t enjoy the game anymore will be the day I retire”, these have been the words of the Little Master. But Sachin is far too much in love with the game to retire on account of lack of passion or love. He still has that hunger in him to score the runs.

• Fitness

MSD has been categorizing Sachin as a slow fielder in recent times. It’s time MSD self-introspected and looked at his own shabby keeping. Apart from his quick stumping skills, he is a below average keeper himself. Sachin has been diving around, giving the ball a good chase to the boundary and hasn’t dropped many catches either. Also his running between the wickets is as good as ever. So I don’t see fitness as a reason for retirement.

• Form

To judge a player, who has played for 22+ years now, on the basis of a few recent matches would be an insult to that player. As they say, ‘Form is Temporary. Class is permanent.’ Yes, Sachin’s bat hasn’t wielded a lot of runs in this series but that can happen to anybody at any point of time in career and Sachin should not be forced to retire citing poor ODI form. This is Sachin’s first ODI series after the WC and such a long gap may affect any player of any class. Point dismissed.

• World Cup 2015

It’s a hard thing to say but also true that Sachin has played his last World Cup now. There is no way he can carry on to play the next WC. So one may say he must make way for youngsters and let the process of team-building for the 2015 begin. But considering how volatile the team selections in India are and with the pool of players now available, there’s no way we can start team-building right now.

So all those who have been demanding Sachin’s retirement do not have a very strong point to support their stand. Dropping him seems unlikely as that could lead to nationwide protests, results of which may be worse than riots. It would be better to let the Master decide when he wants to retire and not let any external pressure get to him.