India’s batting superstar Sachin Tendulkar has said he isn’t ready to hang up his boots yet, amid growing speculation about his future following his long-awaited 100th international century. “I still get goose bumps as I stand with my team-mates when the national anthem is on. I still feel the same passion when I pick up my bat and go out,” Tendulkar said in an interview with India’s ‘Open’ magazine. Tendulkar, who set a new record in his glittering two-decade career by completing an unprecedented century of centuries during the recent Asia Cup, said he would quit only when he felt “a little less passion” for the game. “Critics haven’t taught me my cricket and they don’t know what my body and mind are up to. I can tell you that the day I feel a little less passion when I walk out to bat for India, I’ll give up the game. “Critics don’t need to tell me to do so. I will come to them and say ‘my time is up’.
Till then, I’d not bother about these opinions.” India’s cricket greats, including former captain Kapil Dev, talked about Tendulkar’s retirement last month, at least from one-dayers, to prolong his Test career. Dev said that it was time to ponder hard choices for Tendulkar. “Maybe his time has come,” Kapil said. “Every player has his time. Age is not on his side as it was earlier.” But Tendulkar, the world’s leading scorer in both Test and one-day cricket, told Open magazine: “Retirement isn’t something I am thinking about.” When asked whether he thought of quitting one-day cricket after India’s World Cup triumph last year, the master batsman said “such a thought had never occurred” to him.
