“What? Are you serious?” asked Gordon Greenidge, cutting the handshake short midway at the St Kitts Marriott Resort. The Caribbean sun had just begun to creep up over the horizon, but the big news was already in: Sachin Tendulkar won’t make it to the West Indies. “It’s a huge blow. For the Indian team and all fans,” the legendary West Indian opener and now a selector told The Indian Express, adding with a wink, “It’s good news for our boys, though.” Tendulkar, who underwent shoulder surgery in March, ruled himself out for the test series after undergoing a fitness test on Tuesday morning. He spent the last week in Chennai training under Andrew Leipus and MRF Academy fitness trainer Ramji Srinivas. But Tendulkar chose not to undergo a scheduled fitness test in Mumbai today, informing the BCCI instead that he had not recovered from the shoulder injury that saw him pull out of action early this year. It was left to him to tell the media in Mumbai that he would not be going. Team India coach Greg Chappell, however, chose to play down the impact of Tendulkar’s absence for the Test series starting June 2. “If he isn’t fit, he can’t make it, that’s it. It simply presents an opportunity for another player,” Chappell told The Indian Express at the Marriott, minutes before boarding the team bus for the third one-dayer at the Warner Park. But Ian Frazer, a key member of Chappell’s support team, was more candid. “I am sure it’s disappointing for Sachin and for the team. I mean, which team in the world wouldn’t like to have Sachin Tendulkar on their side,” Frazer told this paper. Of course, for Indian fans here, the news has come as a downer after the big high of this island hosting its first international cricket match today—the Warner Park here will also host the third Test starting June 22. “He is such a huge star. We have said so much about him to our Caribbean friends here that even they were looking forward to watch him play. It’s very, very disappointing,” said Gaurav Bajaj, a fourth year MBBS student at the Windsor University School of Medicine here, who had come to watch the one-day match. Team India would have loved to have Tendulkar fit in time for the Tests, considering the Mumbai superstar’s great record against the West Indies: three hundreds and seven fifties at an average of 57.74 in 16 Tests. The latter half of the 33-year-old’s 132-Test career has been a story of fitness problems: back (1998-99), toe (2001), ankle (2002-03), finger (2003), tennis elbow (2004-05) and now the shoulder injury. The back injury, which forced him to miss many matches, nearly threatened to cut short his career till he came back with a hundred against Kenya in the England World Cup of 1999, looking up immediately after the 100th run to thank his departed father.
