That tap on the shoulder from Father Time

Peter Roebuck muses here on ageing greats Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar as each batting icon runs his own steeple chase against time. Sentiments left aside, every leading cricketer needs to take a few ahead-of-the-game decisions about his playing future just around this "early to mid thirties" phase of his career, when every little stretch of 'poor form' starts getting viewed suspiciously without exception.

The game splitting up into two formats spiritually different from one another did nothing to aid such complex decisions. Jai Arjun Singh once wondered about the astonishing brevity of the graph of a cricketer's life in this blog. The archetypal modern player has a lot more incentives than his earlier counterparts for playing on. Personal milestones, dedication to the team's cause and love of the game are all there and are now joined by the crack of mass adulation of a growing global audience and thoughts of maximising financial returns in order to insure the very long post retirement life ahead. "Let me try one more season," he would probably tell himself at a corner of the dressing room while the youthful raise the decibels oblivious of his turmoil.

The trick is to tell playing on from staying on. A player who comes thus far in his career must walk this emotional tightrope to a longer career over the trap of carrying on beyond his "sell-by date" (to quote Jai) and time his departure from the great stage while the halo is still intact. He needs to do it sensing that gentle tap on the shoulder from Father Time, else he leaves himself at the mercy of earthlings named selectors. Going by the trends, this particular sense of timing is a rare gift even amongst players of sublime virtues.