“No cricketer in history has been more accustomed than Sachin Tendulkar to playing five-day test matches, †Huw Richards wrote in The International Herald Tribune.
“Tendulkar, whose career achievements have reached the point where he rewrites the record books every time he steps onto an international cricket pitch,†Mr. Richards wrote, will start his 189th test Thursday, when India plays New Zealand in Hyderabad.
“Yet there will be something unfamiliar about the teammates alongside him in southern India,†Mr. Richards wrote.
“Neither V.V.S. Laxman, who announced his retirement Saturday, nor Rahul Dravid, who quit in March, will be there,†Mr. Richards wrote. “Both were on the team when Tendulkar played his previous test, against Australia in January.â€
The departure leaves Tendulkar as the last survivor of the golden generation of middle-orde r batsmen who have towered over Indian cricket's most fertile and successful era. Another in that group, and the oldest by a few months - the former captain Saurav Ganguly - played his final test in 2008.
Tendulkar is now, at 39, the oldest active player in international cricket - some achievement, as he started, at age 16, as the youngest player ever for India. It inevitably raises once more the question of his own retirement. “I don't think like that,†he told The Times of India this week. “It will come when it has to come.â€
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