Greatness is a fickle thing. More so perhaps in sport than in any other profession. It could embrace you on a day when you are weighing the safety of a banking career against the uncertainties of a life in sport. It could abandon you without as much as a farewell note on the night of your highest achievement.

Sports writers around the world were writing of the lyrical beauty and intoxicating grace in Mohammad Azharuddin’s batting on one day and the story of how he sold a nation that worshipped him for a few blocks of cash the next. Tiger Woods who was a picture of the perfect role model in sports and the greatest brand ambassador, suddenly had concerned parents adding him into the ‘Blocked Search Words’ lists and lawyers scampering around to get the contract termination papers in order.

Woods at that time was living at the absolute peak of his career, well on his way to being the greatest player to have ever played the game. In a few months from then Mohammad Azharuddin would have received a send-off worthy of a legend. Today, we cannot speak of them without our ‘sports accustomed’ brains setting off a series of signals activating the parts of our memory that contain the word ‘Disgraces.

Overnight, deserted by greatness, the ‘heroes’ were suddenly spoken of with a disgust that you reserve only for traitors.

To be a sportsman must be difficult. To be a cricketer in India, a nightmare. Being watched by a billion people- a few of them watching only to catch a wrong move- it takes a lifetime of sacrifice and commitment to stay on that slippery pedestal of greatness. Very few in that number that is flashed across our latest debutante’s test jersey, have managed to do it: to play the game at an exception level and lead a life without blemish.

At a time when there is a great reluctance amongst sportsmen to play the role model, as if it’s an unreasonable, excessive burden (scenes of a 21 year old flashing a rude hand gesture to the crowds and reports of a brawl with the fans in a English bar comes to mind), I cannot help but write about a generation that we grew up with.

We were lucky, for we chanced by a decade that saw at once four players of tremendous talent lead lives with dignity and responsibility. Players who were at once perfect role models and exceptional sportsmen. Players who carried the tag of greatness with absolute ease and more importantly, with humility.

Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman.

Each of them can easily claim a page or two even in the most abridged version of a book in cricketing achievements. They gave us more than the evening’s entertainment that was forgotten over days in the complexity of our ‘busy lives’. They gave us milestones by which our lives so far have been stacked away neatly in our memories.

The centuries at Sharjah against the Aussies and the clichéd but appropriate ‘Dust storm in the Desert’ headlines that followed the days after. The epic match at Eden Gardens when VVS Laxman composed one of his finest concertos. (There of course was Dravid at the other end). Dravid’s own unforgettable 233 at Adelaide and 270 in Rawalpindi that clinched victories that were at one point believed to be impossible.The scenes of celebration after Kumble selfishly took every single wicket of a hapless Pakistani line up.

There are few occasions in sport that refuse to be captured by the most poetic of words, most lyrical of sentences. These certainly belong in that league. Yet, years later, the precious feeling of being awed by a masterpiece lingers on.

With thousands of runs and hundreds of wickets against their name at the highest level, each of these men undoubtedly had an abundance of ‘The Gift.’ (Greg Chappell once said of Sachin Tendulkar, “I’d like to see him go out one day and bat with a stump. I tell you he’d do OK”) Together with the dedicated hours of hardwork and almost zenlike discipline, brilliance on the cricket field was only natural.

But it wasn’t these innumerable moments of sporting genius that set them apart. (Woods and Azhar gave us some of the finest moments of genius too.) It was the way they carried themselves around in a nation that literally worshipped them. Rahul Dravid once said,“I do not think I am a hero. My only qualification is that I appear on the television more often than a soldier or a nurse or a teacher”. In a sport where ego is largely attributed the role of driving the players, these men were an epitome of absolute humility. They were private men caught in the most public of careers.

They were patriots eager to represent their nation to the best of their ability, much before being cricketers or celebrities. They would never put themselves ahead of the nation, even as such unfortunate scenes unfold elsewhere in Indian sport. At a time when Cricketers are as much TV stars, with all the endorsements and even reality shows, the only dance steps that they knew was the one that involved coming down the pitch and lofting the ball over midwicket. Sachin Tendulkar, when asked about all the endorsements said,“I’d prefer to average 99.95 rather than sign all these contracts”.

That was who they were. They were in the game only because they loved it. The lucrative perks of the profession that drive many a youngster today held no meaning. They would still have played cricket with as much commitment if you had paid them a tenth of what they were getting paid.

Roger Hornsby, still considered amongst the greatest hitters of all time was quoted, “People ask me what I do in the winter when there is no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I sit at the window and wait for spring to come”.

Perhaps, these guys did the same thing in the lone season when there was no cricket. (Now, IPL fills that void.) Take away the willow and the leather from them and they are just ordinary men in the middle of life, unable to do the one thing that they love the most.

Maybe that’s why, while others have found their calling on poker tables and golf courses, Kumble lingered on for 2 years at the IPL and when the body refused to cooperate, still mentors a team and does an unenviable administrative job at the KSCA. Rahul Dravid a few days back was playing second division domestic cricket. Sachin still hasn’t ruled out the 2015 world cup and Laxman continues to look forward to the Australians. Great? Beyond question.

They were four exemplary men on whom greatness laid claim. For years they have sacrificed selflessly to keep us entertained. The least we could do today is not call for their heads. Two of them have already made their exits, but we continue to look for reasons why the time is right for the other two.

Dravid, when asked why he didn’t wait for a series in India so that he could leave to a resounding applause of a home crowd, just said, “That’s unlike me.” They always have the best interests of the nation in their minds. Maybe, we should let them make their own calls rather than impose our infinite wisdom on them.

Retirement must be a tricky thing for them. Of course, they wont be looking for the perfect retirement- how can having to stop doing the one thing you love ever be perfect? (Pete Sampras perhaps came closest to a perfect retirement when he shouted into the noise of victory “I f***ing did it” after winning the US Open, same place where he won his first Slam.)

But they will know when the time comes. For now, let us just be glad we witnessed a generation that was the greatest ever in Indian Cricket and enjoy the flick of the wrist, the perfect cover drive and the warmth in our hearts while they last.

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