Idle musings

THANK YOU, MASTERS     Sachin Tendulkar has announced his retirement from one-day internationals. It is a matter of time before he will retire from Test cricket as well. This year has seen the fade away of three batting superstars in cricket - Dravid, Ponting and Tendulkar. Cricket will be poorer in their absence. The teams will find replacements but the unique characteristics of these three batsmen will be missing. Such is cricket.     To me, Sachin was always second among my list of idols. My early teens were fired by the innings of Sunil Gavaskar. As the blog http://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.in/2011_04_03_archive.html indicates, my interest in cricket developed AFTER the 1983 World Cup win. After the World Cup win, Clive Lloyd and the West Indies toured India.     The Windies were led by Lloyd and he had the fearsome Malcolm Marshall and the Rolls Royce of West Indian fast bowling, Michael Holding as his spearheads. Looking for revenge, India was outclassed in both the tests and