Kapil Dev & Sachin Tendulkar reveal their pre-retirement secrets.

The year: 1989. Still 5 years before Kapil retired, and the year Sachin made his debut. It’s an iconic ad, more so in hindsight, seeing the juxtaposition of two players from different generations playing together. If Boost could, I don’t put it beyond them to have approached The Don to do an ad with Sachin.

OK, so Kapil said Sachin should retire from ODI cricket? Big deal. Don’t you, on bad days say that all the time? I do. I want all of them to retire. And then, soon enough I want them to unretire. Retire, unretire, play on, retire, easy as that.

A few minutes back, there was a tweet from the NDTV cricket editor @NikhilNaz “Reports in the Australian media suggest Ricky Ponting likely to announce his retirement from all forms of the game tomorrow.”

To which I asked - But why is Ponting retiring from all forms, Kapil Dev hasn't even asked him to retire from ODIs?

I’ve been laughing all day, and many days before today about Ponting. And that, at least for me, is how I define my relationship with many of these cricketers who I feel I know on first name basis.

And yet I prefer not to know them personally, I’m good knowing their cricket, their idiosyncrasies, and what I make of them, and that can be, in a warped way, quite personal.

Most of these guys on the verge of retiring are younger than me, by a year or two, a few months, that kind of thing. So there’s this warped kid-brother angle I have worked out in my head.

So when I read Nikhil’s tweet, it wasn’t so funny anymore. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t know, but for it to be mentioned in print, that defined it.

So I got thinking and tweeted - Ponting tomorrow, the others follow soon - they're talking about my generation. so schizo about these retirements. deep down we want them all to play on so we can go on about the retirements.

But that’s enough serious, here are some @BoredCricket tweets about Kapil Dev saying that Sachin should have retired after the World Cup/ and he should retire immediately -

Doubt Sachin will ever find the words to reply to Kapil Dev. Uska toh jawab nahin!

Sachin's shoe-shiner: How dare Kapil Dev ask Sachin sir to hang his boots.

The BCCI has taken many ICL players back into the fold. Time they extended that generosity to Kapil Dev.

Think twice before you push for Tendulkar's retirement. When it comes to pass, where will you get your 15 minutes of fame from?

"Kapil Dev should announce his retirement with retrospective effect immediately after the 1983 World Cup" – signed, hard core Sachin Tendulkar fans