It was withdrawn, Sehwag said, “because if we appealed and umpire gave him out, then somebody will criticise that, you know, that was not spirit of the game”. Sehwag was asked if it was not soft to let the batsman off even after the warning. “It’s soft, but that’s the way we are,” he said.

Sehwag is indirectly criticizing both Tendulkar (for talking him out of his appeal) and Dhoni (for letting Ian Bell off in the summer). He’s also being an ass about it — ultimately, as captain, he had the final decision. If he wanted to stand up to Tendulkar, he should have done so.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.

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I foresee new rules for the selectors. Select the players. Then replace them only when a player chooses his time of departure.

It’s easy to look at Tendulkar or Ponting and think that these guys just don’t know when to quit the limelight. If I were an athlete, I would hate to contemplate the rest of my life — what, endless commentary with the same group of insufferable people? Coaching a bunch of IPL dimwits?

But at least with Tendulkar, it seems that as much as Tendulkar resists leaving, we can’t handle his departure either. Part of this reluctance stems from what social scientists call status quo bias; as much as we recognize the problems of reality — bad form, delaying youngsters, etc. — we don’t want to deal with the messiness of finding a replacement. But an even bigger problem comes from a particular lack of confidence. Tendulkar represents magic and the divine touch; dropping him not only risks the ire of the gods: it supposes an arrogance — a very modern one — that we now know the secret to creating fire.

It is, in other words, a mutiny. And that freaks people out — so much so that they’d be happy to let Tendulkar play on and on.