“Age wrinkles the body; quitting wrinkles the soul.” – Douglas MacArthur.
When my brother Ian retired, I thought he was making a huge mistake. “You’re crazy,” I told him, “You’ve got so much cricket left in you!” But Ian, with that quiet wisdom he always had, replied: “You won’t need anyone to tell you when the time comes—you’ll know.” Those words stayed with me, echoing through my mind during the twilight of my own career.
In my final season of Test cricket, I began to feel the cracks in my once unshakable armour. The mental energy I once summoned so effortlessly started to wane. I found myself cautious at the start of my innings, my feet unwilling to move the way they used to.
It was a humbling realisation, and yet it felt natural. For my last Test in Sydney, I asked our captain, Kim Hughes, if I could bat at my favourite No.4 position. I knew it would be my final bow, and I wanted to go out on my terms. Despite a tentative start, I found something deep within me – a fragment of the rhythm and focus that had defined my prime. I finished with a century at the SCG, a fitting end to a cherished journey.
This story isn’t just mine. It’s the story of every great batter who faces the inevitability of time. From Sachin Tendulkar to Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting to Virat Kohli, the arc of a cricketer’s career often concludes with a struggle to come to terms with diminishing powers. The phenomenon, often unspoken yet universally understood, is what I like to call Elite Performance Decline Syndrome (EPDS).
The first visible sign of EPDS is a subtle but unmistakable shift in a player’s approach at the crease. Gone is the fearless intent of youth, replaced by caution. Kohli, once renowned for his domineering starts, has in recent years shown a tendency to begin tentatively. Much like Tendulkar and Ponting before him, Kohli seems to need a buffer – a score of 20 or 30 – before he can rediscover his flow.
Virat........