5 cricketers who bid goodbye too soon
Sachin Tendulkar played at the top of his game for 24 yearsLike every sport, cricket is a game where a lot of factors are involved in the longevity of a player; every player does not stay at the top of the tree for 24-odd years like Sachin Tendulkar.Discipline, skills, enhancing those skills are just a few of the factors that carries one through, there are others as well. There are also cricketers who leave the scene early for various reasons again.Ideally, a player likes to throw in the towel when he has accomplished most of his dreams or is at the peak of their game, but this is my personal take where I feel a player plays on until his bones give up.There have been instances in the past where a player has just signed off vaguely; probably we unanimously felt that they have the pedigree to last a couple of more seasons. These are cases where one gets flummoxed, at least their fans get. I am not a fan, just a cricket writer.The criterion or the parameter here is not age completely, but the form and the potential of carrying on further is what is being taken into account. Here are five such cases which we felt were curious enough to feature in this listicle.
#1 Sourav Ganguly
Known as the ‘Maharaja’ Sourav Ganguly is one of the most successful Indian captains ever. He took over at a stage when India was going rough patch with match-fixing haunting every cricket fan, cricket was in turmoil so to say.
He was the turnaround man halting the Aussie run at Eden Gardens in 2001, a Test which probably marks the A.D and B.C of Indian cricket. He then marshalled his troops to the finals of the 2003 World Cup.
Then the slide started once Greg Chappel stepped into India as coach. Ganguly is also one of India’s most prolific run-getters with 11,363 and 7212 runs with 22 and 16 tons in One Day Internationals and Tests respectively.
Ganguly was dropped after some poor performances in 2006 but was again included for the Protean series where he proved his touch by becoming the highest scorer in Tests and then he amassed consecutive tons in Tests against Pakistan at home.
Again, he was sidelined for the CB ODI series. Finally, he announced his retirement a tad too early, two days before the first Test versus Australia at home. He might have had a couple of years of solid International cricket left in him.