More than India’s humiliating 10 wicket defeat at the hands of England in the second Test in Mumbai, it is Sachin Tendulkar’s poor form that is making more headlines.

He was going through a rough patch and it was expected that he will jump to form in this series, especially after a century in the Ranji Trophy. Lot was expected out of it and that he would give the Indian fans something to cheer about. But he failed in both the Tests drawing speculations that his time is up.

His performances over the last two years have been very bad and still everyone thinks that it is not just another phase and he is the best one to think about his career.

Without any doubt he has been the most phenomenal Indian cricketer for India. The batting maestro, who has almost all the batting records to his name, is the only player in the history to have scored 100 international centuries and also spend 23 years playing cricket at the highest level. But Sachin’s bad run over the recent times have given rise to talks that whether he still has it in him to deliver for India.

Over the last two years he has scored at an average of 35.72 runs per innings ( in 37 innings) with 2 centuries to his credit.

But still the BCCI feels he has it in him to continue playing for India and even the selectors are persisting with him. Lot of players have been axed due to poor run and what is surprising is that why are the selectors being so lenient with the master blaster.

He no doubt has done a lot for Indian cricket and so have others. But the selectors did not take a second thought before blaming them.

Here are few instances that will establish the fact how selectors have acted when others were out of form.

VVS Laxman had an average of 39.65 runs per innings over 47 innings with 3 centuries, but two bad series and fingers were pointed and he eventually called it a day to avoid getting disgraced. There were lot of rumours that it was Kris Srikanth, then chief selectors who forced his retirement.

Then comes Rahul Dravid who scored an average of 42.63 runs per innings (in 47 innings) with 8 centuries. But brickbats after Australian series led to his retirement.

And these stats show their figures for last two years before they retired from the game.

If Sachin has the right to think about his career so did they. But then the blame that it was their performance that let India down was too much for them.

But no one ever dared to tell anything about Sachin nor does anyone have the guts to blame him for his failure. It looks like Sachin’s shelf-life at the international level is coming to an end. For a player who has played 23 years of international cricket knows it best when to retire, but then at times recent performance weighs down past. Sachin has not been blamed yet for anything and still everyone holds him in high regards. He should quit cricket with his head held high before everyone starts things thinking him as a liability and point fingers at him.

It would not be harsh to say that Sachin has lost his touch but the stats and his performance over the two years does make a thing clear that if not immediately his time at the international cricket is coming to an end.

By Indian Sports News Network