At the end of today’s play in Motera in the first test against England, India has posted 323/4 in 90 overs. This score is not bad keeping in view of the fact that the pitch has started taking turn on the first day itself and this is good news for Indian spinners, who can make life difficult for English batsmen the moment they take stance on the crease.
But today’s highlight of the game was dismal performance once again of ace batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who could score just 13 runs. The fans of Sachin may say that their God like batsman fell due to beautiful bowling of Graeme Swann. But fact of the matter is that Sachin has outlived its cricket life. Sachin has given his heart and soul to the game of cricket but a time comes in everybody’s life when the person is not agile or in same frame of mind when he or she was young. Everything on this earth whether it is human being or lifeless article like a building or a machine has a shelve life and one can’t expect even lifeless structure or a machine to withstand or perform after certain period of time, to the full satisfaction of its owner.
How can anybody expect a normal human being like Sachin to keep on scoring runs and centuries in almost all the games. It is high time for Sachin to take call on his retirement and take glorious exist from the game. This is the appropriate time for the administrators of the game to fill slot of Sachin with young blood. Sachin has contributed a lot to Indian cricket and he can continue to render his services while sitting outside and helping Indian cricket board to improve Indian cricket, if they like to take his professional services.
Another alarming feature of today’s play was that Indian batsmen are considered to play spinners very well, but ironically all the four wickets which India lost today, were scalped by English spinner. Indian batsmen will have to be careful in negotiating the clever bowling by Swann if they have to maintain their reputation of good players of spin bowling and taking revenge from England otherwise they will be in deep trouble in the fourth inning.
