5 worst timed retirements in cricket

As the rhetoric goes - You can take the dog out of the fight, but you can't take the fight out of the dog.This is my exact feeling on the topic of sporting legends having to retire.The toughest thing for any sports personality is knowing when to bow down from the stage and that too gracefully. And frankly, this is not something inculcated in them.I mean, when you are told throughout your career to never give up, soldier on and give it back to your critics with your on field performances, how can we expect them to just capitulate one day under the duress of media and critics? How can we ask them to pay heed to their wizened bodies when they are inured by such petty issues? So it’s naturally not the strongest suite for a cricketer or any other sportsperson to know when to retire.Time and again we see players fading away rather than accepting their end as a professional cricketer. The reasons are aplenty and multifarious. Be it personal milestones, love for the sport, or just a lookout for that final hurrah that may ultimately sanction them the status they think they deserve. While we all may understand the reason behind players wanting to stick for another match/series/year and may actually relate to the calling on a personal level, no one likes seeing a team suffer due to an individual’s aspirations.Let’s look at occasions when legendary cricketers had to call it time from the gentlemen’s game but not at an opportune time. Here are the five of the worst timed retirements.Do chip in with your contenders as well.

#5 Sanath Jayasuriya

When you think of Jayasuriya, you think of brazen pulls and cuts for sixes and annihilation of bowling team in the first power play. Jayasuriya carved a niche for himself with this atypical batting as an opener while his wily left-arm spin made him a perfect fit in all forms of the game.

He was the part of that new world order squad of the mid ‘90s that helped Sri Lanka efface the minnows tag along with Aravinda Da Silva, Ranatunga and Muralitharan. But like all the legends of the game, saying goodbye was not easy for him.

Having played his last match at the age of 42, it always looked like he was looking to fit in to the squad even playing in the middle order rather than as an opener just to get by. Sadly, this was not the Jayasuriya that crumbled many a sides in the 1996 World Cup but a shadow of him.

#4 Javed Miandad

Mercurial Miandad had a long affair with the game and the game and fans were fortunate (in most of the cases) to see the myriad hue of the Pakistani legend. From last ball victories with a six to brandishing his bat against Dennis Lillie, to being the backbone of 1992 World Cup squad to jumping up and down mocking Kiran More, Miandad was not just your plain old vanilla cricketer.

A career spanning twenty years and 6 World Cups, Miandad surely overstayed his welcome and this the legend himself agrees to, claiming that he was not properly treated during 1996 World Cup, being shunned to odd fielding positions and not really having a say in the squad despite being a veteran campaigner.

Playing in what turned out to be his last international game in the 1996 World Cup quarter-finals against arch rivals India, Miandad succumbed to a middle order collapse and a loss that would take out the defending champions. It was such a blow that Miandad confirmed his retirement in the team bus after the game.

#3 Sachin Tendulkar

It would be an incomplete list if we did not include Sachin Tendulkar in this. One of the most debated retirements in recent times was surely ill-timed to say the least. Having amassed so much in his career, the Master Blaster was loath to leave the game that he had loved the most.

At 40, Tendulkar was not the same Tendulkar that we had seen through the years and this gave his critics fodder to call for his retirement. And jury is and will always be out whether a player can and should be given latitude for such a decision.

When retirement of a player becomes a sort of witch-hunt for everyone, you know it is not apt and rightly timed. At the end it became a question of when, than why or how with Sachin himself struggling with form.

Retirement call came, that too in a record-breaking way, with Sachin marking the end of his career after his 200th Test, most by any player, played at his home ground in a specially arranged series against West Indies. No doubt it was an end of an era and an emotional one too, but the sheen was taken away from it by the fact that it was a tad too stretched and staged.

#2 Graeme Swann

Graeme Swann was a late bloomer in cricketing parlance, making his mark on the game at a ripe age of 29. A regular in the county circuit who started dominating the international stage as soon he was given an opportunity to do the same, Swann had a pretty abrupt end as a player.

During the Ashes tour down under last year, Swann was part of the side which got demolished by the Aussies 3-0 before deciding that enough was enough and hanging his boots rather than just stay there and wait for a formal send off till the end of 5-match series. Sighting his injuries and their effect on his game, Swann thought it was a good time to give others a chance.

Having started as a soon to be 30-year-old in 2008, Swann had a similarly awkward farewell. With allegations of selfishness and being fair weathered were obviously bandied but what was more sad was the fact how the English dismantled psychologically both as individuals and a group, with Trott earlier leaving the series due to his issues and then Swann adding to the woes by the untimely retirement almost proving critical to English cause.

#1 Kapil Dev

The Haryana hurricane had a career to cherish. Highest number of Test wickets by a bowler, most Tests by an Indian player and what not. But one of the many allegations that are directed towards Kapil Dev is the fact that he overstayed his welcome and was thus given a not so apt send off.

Starting off in 1979, as a young pacer from Haryana, Kapil helped spearheading and rejuvenating Indian pace line up which was always considered tenuous before him. And he went on to spearhead that line up till 1995. A talisman in the 1983 World Cup winning side saw a slump as he was unable to repeat the feat four years later in the subcontinent. But soon he became a peripheral figure and bided his time in the national team.

In somewhat of a parallel to Sachin’s 100th hundred, Kapil, having taken his 400th wicket in 1992, waited a good three years to reach the magic figure of 432 wickets needed to surpass Sir Richard Hadlee as the highest wicket taker in the world, for which he received his share of brickbats.