Tendulkar should learn to live with injuries

By John Cheeran
Sanjay Manjrekar is a brave man.
The former Indian cricketer, renowned for his technical excellence, has criticized Sachin Tendulkar for his shameful pussyfooting over injuries in a lead article in The Times of India.
Manjreker has written what many others have shied away even from thinking.
None criticizes Tendulkar, especially Indian cricket writers.
Manjrekar has argued that Tendulkar should not be afraid of failures on a day when the contemporary King of Runs was brought back into the Indian team by national selectors. Manjrekar gives West Indian captain Brain Lara and Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul Haq as examples to Tendulkar. The former India and Mumbai cricketer points out that these two are too playing with many injuries and not as fully fit individuals.
Manjrekar has drawn attention also to Tendulkar's baffling decision to take a break and reveal his latest injury after failing in the second innings of the Mumbai Test against England, a Test that India lost eventually.
One must remember that the Mumbai crowd lost patience with their once blue-eyed boy and roundly jeered him before Tendulkar said, look, guys, it is not my mistake, I'm not fit, I'm injured and I need an operation and rest. That was a Public Relation exercise at its best.
I had pointed out the same through a post here but the celebrated cricket writers were not inclined to think in that vein.
Now Manjrekar has written that Tendulkar should learn to play with a less than fully fit body. After playing international cricket for 17 years, your body will have its own wear and tear. To expect otherwise would be foolhardy.
There has been so much fuss in the past about Tendulkar's tennis elbow. How serious is this problem? None really knows.
Again, Manjrekar has drawn the nation's attention to how Tendulkar pretends that he is a victim of injuries when the going gets tough and with in days shows no trace of such woes when bowlers let him dominate the action.
All of us carry injuries to workplace. Minor and major ones; we are not prima donnas and hence we cannot pick and choose when we want to do our work.
Tendulkar is given such luxuries by an indulgent nation and the cricket board. But Tendulkar would well to remember that he cannot hide behind tennis elbows any longer.
He has to play with his injuries; if he runs up a poor string of scores, it is quite natural. But he should be ready to accept the fact that he will be dropped if he does not score consistently.
DROPPED, YES.
Now everytime Tendulkar walks out to bat there will be expectations as in the past. But there will be disappointments too, much more than in the past.
It would be silly to blame the injuries for one's failures and hold a team's options to pick a winning combination to ransom.
This, indeed, is time to think for the Camp Tendulkar.