Last week we had a call from a legend, a great, in Ricky Ponting. He felt his time was up and realised a young player would take his place.
I am hoping that Sachin will also accept it is coming to the stage when he has to make his own call.
There is no one strong enough in India cricket to go and knock on his door and say time is up. But for the good of the team senior players have to retire so the rest can move forward and build a new era.
Sometimes when you have senior players who stick around for too long the team gets stuck in a rut.
Sachin could still eke out a few runs for another 12 months but he is not batting at the levels he used to reach.
Look at the way he was out in the second innings yesterday. It was a good ball from Graeme Swann but he was just prodding at it. He got 76 in the first innings but the man at the crease was not the Sachin Tendulkar I know.
He was not playing the free-flowing way we have loved down the years. He is having to think and really work out where he can score every single run but in the past it came naturally.
Maybe that is a sign he is thinking about moving on and wants to go out on a high. When you want something so desperately and to finish with a hundred in your last few games, it actually becomes harder and harder. You can want something too much.
I think it is affecting other players in the Indian side. It is hard for guys like Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh who have looked up to Sachin all their lives to see him struggling.
I am sure he is still a magnificent role model in the dressing room and is respected by everyone, but it is horrible to see these greats go on too long and playing badly at the end.
Eventually even Sachin has to move on. He can’t play forever and there will be a youngster out there ready to take the No 4 spot. It will take a while to get used to life without Sachin but it might bring new energy into the set-up.
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