Satire: BCCI's secret letter to Tendulkar leaked

Disclaimer: This is a piece of fiction written for humorous purposes, and does not intend to offend either Sachin Tendulkar or his fans.

Sachin Tendulkar – The letter that shook the world

A day before Tendulkar announced his retirement from Test cricket, the BCCI had sent him a secret letter urging him to retire from International cricket. The letter was leaked as Tendulkar accidentally pressed the F-Share button on his mailbox. Read on.

Dear Sachin,

I hope this letter does not disturb you while you’re having quality time with your family. Firstly, I would like to congratulate you on your extra-ordinary journey of 24 years of International cricket. You were a very ‘good boy’ when you first arrived but you’re not willing to say ‘good bye’ now, when the time has come. It is needless to say that you’ve achieved everything, apart from lifting Nita Ambani – which Harbhajan did – and a Test hundred at Lord’s. Talking about the latter, I hope you won’t expect us to organize a tour to England now and the former can be done off the field as well.

Dravid and Laxman, both legends, but they didn’t get a Farewell Test match. You need to understand that you are very special and we canceled the South African tour and organized a West Indies tour at home to let you play your 200th Test match at the Wankhede. The only thing we haven’t probably done for you over the last couple of months is to let you open the innings with your son Arjun Tendulkar for India. But, well, you need to understand that there are a few things even the BCCI cannot do. For everything else, there is Sir Jadeja.

With all due respect, we don’t want your form to dip below Ricky Ponting‘s form during the final days of his career. We also do not want Rohit Sharma to claim that his batting average for Team India is better than yours. We tried bribing the statisticians to ensure your overall batting average doesn’t get affected but that didn’t seem to work. So, for the best interest of the brand called Tendulkar and also the team, we would like to request you to bid goodbye to International cricket.

We do have several roles to offer you once your International career is over. You can join our elite commentary panel that has stalwarts like Ravi Shastri, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Arun Lal and Kapil Dev. You can also choose to be the brand ambassador of India cements or the IPL. We also let your team win the Champions League which in itself was a favor of unmatched proportions.

The 200th Test in Mumbai will be a landmark Test not because of the number, but mainly because it will be the last time Tendulkar would don the Indian whites. By this, we expect the TRP ratings to sky-rocket and the demand for the tickets – which would be as highly priced as the sixes you once used to hit – might also help the nation restore some balance in its economy. We expect tourists to flock Mumbai during the 2nd Test between India and West Indies.

We’ve written the script perfectly and all you need to do is to announce your retirement. Make sure the phrases ‘This is purely my decision’, ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought’, ‘I’m thankful to the BCCI’ and the like are used in your retirement speech. Do let us know about the kind of pitch you would want the curator to prepare and the bowlers you do not want to face during the West Indies tour. We believe that won’t be a problem as Sunil Narine isn’t touring India.

I hope you respect our stand point and create no issues like Ganguly did. Looking forward to executing the plan as per the script. Make no mistake, the BCCI is ever so grateful and wishes it could find a way to have you in the team forever. But, there’s Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Sachin Baby and a lot of others who would want to be the next Sachin. We need to give the youngsters a chance too.

PS: Do not expect me to give any youngster a chance right-away.

Yours Corruptly,

N Srinivasan