When players embarrassingly drag their careers beyond their “expiry date”
Players who stayed beyond their "expiry date"
By Nishad Pai Vaidya
Players should retire when people ask “why?” and not “why not?” — Vijay Merchant
What Merchant, the great Indian opening batsman, meant was that players must retire when they are still good and enjoy the respect of the masses. But, sadly, that is often not the case — especially in current times when a few additional matches could mean a sizable boost to the bank balance. Retirement itself is not commonly heard. The norm in modern day is for a player to be dropped when the selectors are left with no other option.
It’s particularly painful when a legendary name refuses to accept that he is well past his best and is a laughing stock. It’s a like a Derby winner reduced to a hill station horse — and still thinking it’s continues to be a Derby champion!
Kapil Dev and Gundappa Viswanath are two greats who stayed around in international cricket longer than one would have liked them to. In the last phase of their respective careers, they were embarrassingly struggling.
In his farewell Test series, against Pakistan, Viswanath averaged a paltry 16.75. Similarly, Kapil Dev struggled to pick up wickets in his twilight zone. In his last 17 Tests, his best was three three-wicket hauls! In this phase, he went wicketless 11 times, got one wicket in an innings 10 times and got two wickets in an innings seven times. One could see that even the India team members wanted him to call it a day as he was affecting the balance of the side. Of course, the selectors would have to take all the blame for not picking the team on merit and allowing a player to drag his career on past reputation.
In Indian cricket, selectors have generally found it very hard to drop great players — the exception being Sourav Ganguly. Thus, it becomes a player’s responsibility to ensure that he doesn’t become a baggage.
It helps all concerned if the decision is made by the player himself — and on time. A good example is Anil Kumble. He announced his retirement from Test cricket in the middle of the India-Australia Delhi Test in 2008. Kumble wasn’t picking up wickets and had injured himself during that game. That injury ruled him out of the last Test of that series which was to be played in Nagpur and he knew that if he carried on longer, the team would be affected. Kumble always conducted himself in a dignified manner.
Australian greats have generally retired when the question before them was “why.” Players like Allan Border, the Waugh twins etc. called it a day before they hit their expiry dates. It is a well known fact that the selectors and the authorities in Australia tell their players that it is time for them to call it quits. One may call it a good practice as the players retire when they are doing well, but at times it’s overstretched. Today, it seems to be more along the lines of age than performance in Australian cricket as the Simon Katich saga indicates.
As long as a player is fit and in form, age should not come in the equation. That’s the case with three of the current Indian players in Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. The troika is playing fantastic cricket. Laxman has played some of the most scintillating knocks over the last year, Dravid is as solid as ever and Tendulkar has had a stellar 12 months.
Some would say, Tendulkar has only got better with age.
Old wine, I say!
(Nishad Pai Vaidya, a 20-year-old law student, is a club and college-level cricketer. His teachers always complain, “He knows the stats and facts of cricket more than the subjects we teach him.”)