Some thoughts on cricketers' retirement

The face says it all. Michael Clarke

Raju Korti
While tongues have been wagging aplenty -- for justified reasons -- about the new-found and undue aggression exhibited by the Indian cricketers with the man at helm Virat Kohli leading the brigade from the front, a series of events seems to have gone quietly unnoticed.
Australian wicket-keeper Brad Haddin is the latest to hang up his boots following similar announcements made by erstwhile captain Michael Clarke, Shane Watson and Chris Rogers after their team's dismal showing in the recently concluded Ashes.
If the long-standing Australian view that "they play their cricket the hard way" is taken on face value, it deserves the merit it calls for. More so when you know these are all pugnacious players who wear their cricketing spirit on their sleeve. So it is not altogether surprising they quit when the going is not good before it becomes an unpleasant task for the Australian Cricket Board to axe them. Mind you Chris Rogers has announced retirement despite having a very profitable Ashes series and he could have easily stuck around on that factor alone, his age notwithstanding. But cricketers elsewhere in the world, with the honorable exception of Indians, go without fuss and sometimes even unsung. No benefit matches and no endorsements or perks. In India, the retirement of a player -- if he has had a good record -- is accompanied by a high emotional quotient, mostly anguish and resentment. With the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) in India flush with moneybags, cricketers fight shy of  retiring until there is a huge outcry from people who ardently believe that a player's place in the team should not be taken for granted and on past merit alone.
There is a specious concession in the argument that great players should be allowed the liberty to hang around and not pressured until they quit on their own. The Indian cricketers know this very well. So they keep playing until they can extract their last Pound. The fact that Sunil Gavaskar (arguably the world's best opening batsman) and Rahul Dravid quit in their prime are exceptions that only prove the rule. Even Sachin Tendulkar, who was not a shadow of himself in the twilight of his career, was a subject of heated debate whether cricketers like him should be allowed the freedom to go of their own volition.
In a nation where the public frenzy for a cricketer far exceeds the excitement generated by the game, the BCCI with all its power and might, does not have the guts to ask a player to resign for the fear of rubbing people the wrong way. It is typically Indian to make a cricketer larger than life who should go on his own terms. This thinking has more negatives than positives. Remember in the past, there were instances of "No Durrani, no Test, No Bedi, no Test" down to "No Dhoni, no Test". While age was fast catching up with a cavalier Salim Durrani, the otherwise wily Bedi had lost his sting as proved from the hiding he got from the then Pakistani team which had Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan and Mushtaq Mohammed. Bedi was retired more by the Pakistani players than the Indian Board. In contrast, the dour grafter Geoff Boycott was dropped for "crawling to a double century" against India at Leeds in 1967 while the elegant Ken Barrington was booted out for the torturous Century against New Zealand in 1965. You couldn't have lost the irony that two years later Boycott and Barrington had dominated the Headingley Test with a century partnership remembered more for its eminently forgettable nature. In its wisdom the English Cricket Board (ECB) felt that the game could "not afford to put in the shop window a joyless effort of this sort". Scoring a Test hundred is the highlight of many players' careers; a double-century is an even more cherished landmark. But there are occasions when the score itself is less important than the way the runs are grafted. That the ECB brought in one-feet-in-grave Colin Cowdrey to counter the resurgent Australian team in 1974 was probably an aberration but Cowdrey realized quickly that his reflexes were no longer equipped to tackle the likes of Lillee and Thomson and bowed out. Weigh this against the Kapil Dev case where the selectors helped him to get past then Test record holder Richard Hadlee. Towards the end, the Haryana Hurricane was at best a mild breeze and had to labor hard for the record.
The truth is many cricketers cannot come to terms with life after retirement  having courted huge public adulation and made their riches. I would particularly like to mention the Englishman David Bairstow who committed suicide out of sheer depression, not knowing how he would cope with life after retirement. When more than 800 people attended his funeral, former skipper Ray Illingworth said "If David had known he had so many friends, he wouldn't have done what he did."
Renowned writer David Frith with a research of over thirty years makes a pertinent observation in his compelling book Silence of the Heart: "Is it because cricketers are less capable than footballers or boxers of coming to terms with the void of early middle-age retirement from the thrill of the arena and the close camaraderie of the game?" In the Indian context, the answer is "yes".
Coming back to Haddin, he had to wait until Adam Gilchrist quit but he was already thirty then. It is remarkable how he takes retirement in his stride. ""Once you've lost that will to get up and do the things you need to do to play for Australia, it's time to walk away. I've had a great run and I couldn't be happier with the way I'm leaving the game."
I can't for my life fathom why cricketers dread post-retirement blues when there are other avenues that can still connect them with the game. Many have made as much a name as commentators or administrators as they did as players. The comment by a friend sums it up all: "Finally, it is a sport. It is what the cricketers do to themselves that causes turmoil."