Former India skipper Anil Kumble on Thursday asked critics of Sachin Tendulkar
to take a step back and allow the veteran batsman to have his
"emotional space" to decide how he would like to deal with his current
poor form.
Insisting the Tendulkar should be
given the respect he deserves, Kumble wrote in his column for the 'Week'
magazine: "There have been instances when he has been the sole reason for India's
wins, but he has never been the sole reason for India's losses. It's
best to leave it to him to deal with what is in front of him now,
because no one else has been in his position. No one else has played 192
Tests, made 34,000 runs, or scored 100 centuries. Let's not jump the
gun, let's give the man the respect he deserves."
"For 23 years, he has helped
people dream, he has made them feel better emotionally. More's the
reason why we need to give him his emotional space now," he added.
"...This is the time for him to be
left alone. He is such a great player that he doesn't need anyone
else's advice on how to score runs. He just needs people to back off and
allow him to work out what he needs to return to run-scoring ways,
which I am confident he will," Kumble said.
Kumble said that it's not only
Tendulkar, who is going through a bad phase but the whole Test team and
implying that team is doing bad because of Tendulkar's poor form would
be highly unfair.
"For the first time, people are
questioning his place in the team. The expectations are that he should
retire because his performances over the last year or so haven't matched
the standards he has set over the previous 22 years. Yes, we have not
seen the best of Sachin in this phase, but it is not just him alone. If
you look at the overall picture, the team has struggled in Test cricket,
so are we suggesting that India are still a one-man army, still totally
dependent on Sachin? I think not," he said.
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