The Tendulkar slap
Sachin Tendulkar's decision to rest from India's tour of the West Indies is reflective of the state of cricket in the Caribbean, Fazeer Mohammed writes in the Trinidad Express
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
Sachin Tendulkar's decision to rest from India's tour of the West Indies is reflective of the state of cricket in the Caribbean, Fazeer Mohammed writes in the Trinidad Express. The West Indies cannot provide the atmosphere that countries like England can, and so cricketers are not excited at the prospect of touring the islands.
But there was obviously something missing that made India's batting maestro determine that a month in the Caribbean and the prospect of a couple really big innings was worth passing up. Maybe it was the challenge. Maybe it was the sense of occasion. Maybe it was both. To put it bluntly: milking our bowlers on the way to a 100th senior international hundred in a near-empty stadium would have been the equivalent of Barcelona defeating Manchester United on a Sunday morning at the Aranjuez Savannah with ten men and two dogs in attendance and two vagrants sleeping at the back of the pavilion.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo