I have known Sachin Tendulkar for a long time and have spent a lot of time with him on the tours of New Zealand, England and Australia to know that he is extremely passionate about the game and simply cannot live without cricket. For him, cricket is everything. I am quite sure the decision to retire must have been very tough for him, simply because he has been playing the game non-stop for close to 30 years. Right from his school days to now, he has been going to the gym, training hard and spending quality time in the nets. Even today, he is as motivated and as committed as he was when he started playing the game. That’s his level of passion. That he won’t be playing the game at the competitive level after the Mumbai Test (against the West Indies) would surely hurt him big time.
