Cricket: Magnificent Tendulkar does right to call time on a great career

Sachin Tendulkar is quitting after his 200th test. Photo / AP

Iam glad Sachin Tendulkar has announced he will retire after his 200th test match because for the best part of 24 years he has been adored and admired by millions.

His legacy to cricket is more important than playing on for another year or two. That would not have enhanced his reputation. It would only swell his bank balance and he is already one of the richest cricketers ever. What he needs is to retain his reputation as one of the finest and greatest batsmen ever.

Playing in 200 test matches is a remarkable achievement. I realise modern cricketers have the opportunity to play far more tests in any calendar year than players of previous generations. But to clock up that many matches a player needs exceptional ability to retain his form, which we all know can rise and fall. He must stay very fit, which becomes harder as you get older.

On top of all that he must maintain his enjoyment of playing and that is not easy because you become jaded after years of travelling.

After 10 or 12 years at the top most guys have had enough, so to play for as long as Tendulkar you need to be single-minded and driven to the point of wanting to play cricket more than anything else in the world.

If that desire and passion ever subsides, no amount of skill can make up for it. On top of 20 years of test match cricket, Sachin has played in 463 one-day internationals. And remember the one-day game is more emotionally and physically draining because of its frenetic pace.

This guy has kept all that together for nearly a quarter of a century. How?

Because he has no weaknesses. He has been the complete batsman. He has a wonderful technique and an all-round game that can include spin, seam or fast bowling. He has been a model batsman with concentration and patience that any youngster should model themselves on.

He has made so many hundreds on good pitches, but I think you see his class really shine when the pitch is helpful to the bowlers. When you have a deteriorating surface it makes it more difficult for batsmen to stay in, never mind score runs.

It is then that your technique, footwork and judgment of length have to be precise so you can survive.

I remember seeing him at Edgbaston when he was a 23-year-old in 1996. On a pitch with variable pace and bounce India were hammered but he made 122 out of his side's total of 219 and never looked in difficulty.

I also saw him play some magnificent shots against South Africa at Cape Town in January 1997 during one afternoon of brilliant strokeplay. He and Mohammad Azharuddin plundered 222 runs off 39 overs. They smashed them all around the park. Sachin made 169 and Azhar 115 after coming together when India were 58 for five. It was thrilling counterattacking against a good pace attack.

He has also been an outstanding player of two of the greatest spin bowlers cricket has ever seen in Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. I watched him in March 1998 play two brilliant innings against Warne on deteriorating pitches. During the first test in Madras he made 155 not out in the second innings on a spinning pitch. When it turned again at Bangalore, and India lost the match, he scored 177 in the first innings.

He went after Warne. When he bowled around wicket in the rough Sachin hit him against the spin. That takes some doing, let me tell you. Ask all those English batsmen who got out to big spinning balls from Warne how hard that is.

We were lucky at Yorkshire to have time with him in 1992 when he became our first overseas professional.

It seems ridiculous now but there was a lot of opposition to signing an overseas player after nearly 130 years of picking cricketers only born in the county.

He was only 19 and an embryo of the great player he would become but he had something about him. Some people say he did not make a lot of runs. But what was important for us was whoever we signed had to fit in. We could not afford any bad publicity and he was perfect. He has maintained that dignity throughout his career.

Naturally he has declined as a player. That happens to everyone. We all start off as young men full of promise, talent and ambition. One day we get to the top of the mountain and stay there playing great innings. But age catches up. You reach your 30s and the reflexes slow down a little bit, physical fitness is not quite what it was and you slip off your perch.

Clever batsmen rely on years of experience to offset what mother nature has taken away.

It is a gradual decline. But it can only go on so long. None of us wants to leave the stage. The game is in our blood. We want it to go on forever. But the trick is knowing when to go.