Opening Doorz

By Moody Marty | Opening Doorz Editorial | May 26, 2026

The burden of being Tendulkar…

In Indian cricket, honesty often arrives late, if at all... especially when legacy is involved. But there comes a point when effort deserves truth more than encouragement, and silence begins to look like betrayal. 

This is that moment.

Dear Sachin,

You carried a billion people on your shoulders for 24 years. You walked out at 16 with a bat that looked bigger than you, and you left at 40 with a stadium crying into its seat cushions. You’ve earned the right to silence. To golf. To breakfast without flashbulbs.

So let’s talk about Arjun. Not the cricketer Arjun. Just Arjun, your son. Because right now, Sachin, the whole country is watching a different kind of innings. It’s not cover drives and straight sixes. It’s the slow, awkward grind of a kid trying to live inside a surname that doesn’t fit.

And the hardest part? You’re the only one who can call him in from the rain.

One tweet doesn’t change a career…

You know this game better than anyone who’s ever picked up a bat. One good ball doesn’t make a bowler. One bad over doesn’t end a spell. So why do we all pretend that one tweet after one match means anything?

He bowls one game, picks up a wicket… then comes the tweet. “Well bowled, Arjun.” “Proud of you.” From you, or from Bhajji, or from Yuvi. And for 48 hours, the machine starts. The headlines, the debates, the slow-motion replays…

But tweets aren’t runs. Retweets aren’t wickets. And clout isn’t form. You know that. You’ve lived 200 Tests of proof that performance is daily, lonely, and brutal. It doesn’t care who your father is once the ball leaves the hand. If it did, Arjun would already have 300 first-class wickets. He doesn’t. Because cricket is the one thing that never respects your last name. It only respects the next ball.

The sidekicks aren’t helping…

This is the part that stings. When your old teammates jump in—the “attaboy” comments, the “he’s got talent” interviews—they think they’re shielding him. They’re not. They’re turning him into a group project.

Even R Ashwin, before the IPL, looked at the squads and said it plain: “Arjun will not play a single match.” That was the analyst talking. The bowler who’s seen a hundred hopefuls in the nets. Then Arjun gets the dead rubber, the last match, the nothing-to-lose game… and suddenly Ashwin’s singing a different tune. “He’s got potential.” “Good to see him get a chance.”

That’s the problem, Sachin. We don’t need eulogies after courtesy caps. We needed honesty before the coin toss. When the voices flip faster than a T20, it stops being support and starts being noise. Arjun doesn’t need sidekicks. He needs silence. He needs space to either be good or be gone, without a chorus line of legends rewriting their own commentary.

You taught us that greatness is private before it’s public. Nets at 6 am. Thousands of balls. Alone. If Arjun had that same private greatness, we wouldn’t need the public defence squad. The scoreboard would do the talking. Right now, the scoreboard is mumbling. So are the statistics: For the six years, Arjun has been part of the IPL ecosystem (auctions, squads, training camps, team photos), his actual time in the middle has been fleeting. Six matches played. More than sixty watched from the sidelines. Seasons passed where his name was present, but his impact was not.

Franchises don’t do charity…

Let’s drop the nostalgia and talk like selectors do—cold and unpaid. Mumbai Indians let him go. That’s your home. Your temple. The franchise that built itself around your silhouette. If there was even a 51% chance that Arjun was a long-term asset, they would have kept him. Franchises don’t release hope. They release liabilities.

Then Lucknow gave him the last match. The dead rubber. The “nothing to lose” game. That’s not a vote of confidence, Sachin. That’s a courtesy. In IPL terms, the last match is when you try the net bowler, the local kid, the guy you owe a favour to. If he were in their plans, he wouldn’t be a May one-off. He’d be in April, with the new ball, when points matter.

You’ve sat in team meetings. You know the difference between a prospect and a problem. The data is writing the letter for us.

Love the game, but the game doesn’t have to love you back...

This might be the hardest sentence you’ll read all year: Arjun may be cricket crazy, but cricket is not crazy for him. And that’s not an insult. Millions of kids are crazy about the game… they sleep with a bat, know Wasim Akram’s run-up by heart, and cry when India loses a cricket match. Loving the game isn’t rare. Being loved back by the game… that’s the one in a billion thing. You were that one. That doesn’t mean he is.

We’ve confused passion with profession for too long because of your shadow. But shadows don’t bat at No. 4. Shadows don’t bowl 135 clicks. Shadows follow you home and make you feel guilty for turning the lights off.

This isn’t just cricket. It’s the oldest story in the world. Enrique Iglesias will never be Julio. Different voice, different era, different crowd. Abhishek will never be Amitabh Bachchan. He can act, he can win awards, but he’ll never walk into a room and make it go quiet as his father does. Dale Earnhardt Jr. won races, won fans, won Daytona. But he was never “The Intimidator”. He was Junior. The name opens the door, but it doesn’t drive the car for you.

For every Paolo Maldini who somehow lived up to Cesare, there are fifty Jordi Cruyffs who just wanted to play without carrying the invention of total football on their back. Lightning doesn’t strike twice just because we want the encore.

So here’s something your friends will not tell you…

It’s okay, Sachin. It’s okay to sit Arjun down and say, “Son, I’ve done this for 35 years. I know what it looks like. And this… this isn’t it.” That’s fatherhood. You don’t owe the country another Tendulkar. You gave us one. That was the miracle. We don’t get two. Demanding another one from you, or from him, is like asking Messi’s son to bend free kicks.

Let him be a coach. A commentator. A businessman. A guy who plays club cricket on Sundays. Let him be Arjun, not “Arjun Tendulkar, son of”. The comma in that phrase is heavier than any kit bag.

The bravest thing you ever did wasn’t the 98 at Centurion...

It was walking away. On your terms. Before the game made you. Give him that same bravery to walk away from a dream that isn’t his, even if it was yours. The bravery to start over at 25 instead of being benched at 35. The bravery to be ordinary in a world that only wants him to be legendary.

You retired so a new generation could play. Now retire the idea that he has to be you. One day, when he’s 40, he shouldn’t look back at a career of “he’s trying” and “maybe next year”. He should look back at a life that was his… picked, not inherited. If that life has cricket, brilliant. If it has cameras, startups, surfboards, or silence, also brilliant.

You carried us, Sachin. Now put the bat down for him. Let him carry his own name, wherever it wants to go.

You’ve given us enough.

[Moody Marty: Sometimes funny, sometimes informative, always downright forthright!]

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