After India's defeat at Mumbai, the debate is less about reasons for the loss and more about why Sachin Tendulkar is being so obstinate and not willing to call it a day, says a column in Hindustan Times, adding presuming for a moment that Tendulkar is not in the team, will it change anything?
“Will India become a transformed side and give England the licking we wanted our team to inflict on them? Will it compensate for the way we are structuring our cricket, where the riches of IPL and the havoc it plays with the genuine skills of the game is resulting in our losing even our home advantage. Post the 2011 World Cup win, the signs that our Test team would plummet to a new low were to be seen everywhere. Have we done anything to correct this self-created imbalance, because of which it might be impossible to have an archetypal Test cricketer anymore?,” says the column.
“A one-day champion can be a pauper in the longer version of the game and MS Dhoni is a classic example of that. But no, we are not interested in confronting these serious issues that have led to where we stand today. For us, it is all about one man. Even if that man happens to be Sachin Tendulkar, the most idolised figure in the nation's sporting history,” says the column, adding that we create heroes in a second and villains out of the same people the moment they fail.
“If that failure coincides with India's defeat, then not even God can save that man from being lynched,” says the column.
Meanwhile a column in DNA says that for decades he was the man who united a nation, making irrelevant such markers as caste, custom, political leanings, gender, age, even interest in sport but now Sachin Tendulkar seems to be dividing the nation – those who choose with their heads asking him to go, and those who decide with their hearts urging him to stay.
“This is an unfamiliar position for Sachin; the darling of millions faced with the gathering discontent of those same millions. Most of us, as we grow older discover how friends sometimes turn against us – but not on this scale and with such force. The changed perception can do strange things to a man. It can either crush his spirit, or inspire it to greater deeds. One final act of redemption, Sachin must be telling himself, one final act of redemption is all I ask for, and then I shall leave – at my time, of my volition, and with the world begging me to stay on,” adds the column.