Cricket Would Be Soon Godless

The 5 wise men who first selected him in 1989:

RS Dungarpur, Akash Lal, Ramesh Saxena, GR Viswanath & Naren Tamhane

He made his Test debut in Karachi in November 1989 when he was just 16 years 205 days old.

From past 24 years this line is being repeated so many times to introduce the maestro ,that the first name which strikes to any cricket follower mind  is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

In my last post I talked about the speculation and today came the news –Sachin Tendulkar to retire after 200^th test.Yes, You got to believe this. Cricket would soon be a Godless sport.15 Nov 1989 to 18 Nov 2013 ,On the 8771th day, God will hang his shoes .

Here is a recap of what virtuoso has left for us in the purest form of cricket-

He has had the 5th-longest Test career ever in terms of time & played on 59 different Test grounds – more than anyone else.

Has had played 200 tests and scored over 15800 runs .

He has played with 108 different team mates and played against 485 different players in Test cricket .

He has played 146 Tests with Rahul Dravid, 122 with Anil Kumble, 120 with VVS Laxman and 103 with Sourav Ganguly.

47 of his Tests were under the captaincy of Mohammad Azharuddin - more than any other captain.

He has never batted at number 3 in his Test career.

He has batted with 65 different players and has top-scored on 78 occasions – more than any other Test player.

He has only been stumped once – at Bengaluru in 2001 by James Foster off Ashley Giles.

He played 84 successive Tests from 15 November 1989 to 15 June 2001.

He has had the 5th-longest Test career ever in terms of time & played on 59 different Test grounds – more than anyone else.

You were a great habit ,in fact an addiction .Not seeing you playing in the future sounds scary.We all will live every moment of these last two games

Death Of A Gentleman

“Death Of A Gentleman”- a documentary in progress to save the existence of test cricket ,the move itself is very commendable but the big question is what exactly went wrong which has left the original format of cricket fight for its existence.

With the advent of technology world is moving very fast now a days and every one is  running short of time for no reason and want success as early as possible in very short time and with this human mentality over time from five day test matches to one dayers and now the T20 which demand only three and a half hour from any ones life and assure super entertainment within 40 overs has given serious challenge to the existence of  a full day 100 overs game and a 5 dayer game and mind you these all are the formats of the same game whose fan followings are now a days are inversely proportional to the time taken.

“Cricket is a gentleman’s game” this saying is known for its pure format that is the test cricket and will always be known for that .Looking at the popularity of shorter version of game the next generation might not believe that their was a format called test cricket which was played for five days in which player play for 90 overs in a day distributed in three sessions and for no reason each side play twice just to get a result but what the hell viewers watch  for 5 days ,how in the world they had so much of time..?? these are some obvious question which will be raised by generation next looking at the present trend and cricket will no more be called as a gentleman’s  game .

Test cricket defines a cricketer. If we look at the great legends which the game has produced from Don Bradman , Vivian Richards , Steve Waugh ,Brian Lara ,Rahul Dravid , Sachin Tendulkar and all big names which you admire have achieved their stature through test cricket only .They have mastered in the basic form of cricket and that’s why they excelled in all formats of cricket but the modern day trend is reverse the young cricketers are constantly failing to perform in this format of game , if one wants to be a cricketer I don’t think they might be having any short of time for that ,then what they lack so badly that now a days test cricket donot even last for full five days .Skill ,potential ?? Probably not..!!The modern day cricket has also became very fast ,now a days cricketers have to play round the years with almost nil gaps and with this excess of cricket the test cricket which checks the cricketers at all level these modern day cricketers fails or rather get exposed and their skill remains trapped inside  their fitness and tired mind which demand rest.  That’s why in the last 7-8 years game has not given any gentleman, it is just getting ahead with its well established gentlemen .

Test cricket demands fitness and cricketers normally have a retirement age of 35 years and all the gentleman’s through which this format exists have crossed this age or are inching toward it which clearly indicates that in near future we will not be having gentleman’s in this game if nothing is done to save this format. We may have many cricketers but we will not have legends, we cannot expect a history to be written, we can just count on the crowded numbers .