I still remember the "farewell" Steve Waugh received when he decided to retire from professional cricket.
I'd watched it on TV and I must admit I was throughly impressed. The test series in which Waugh was playing for the last time ,was meticulously publicized as "Waugh farewell series", and it was a big event in Australia, and in world cricket too. He was accorded a standing ovation at almost all the cricket venues.
This was probably Aussie way of saying thanks to their "hero" for bringing laurels to Australian cricket.
Then a few days back, I saw the farewell that a player from Subcontinet received. After serving Pakistani cricket for more than 16-17 years, Inzamam had declared in advance that he'll retire from One day cricket after world cup. Before the advent of world cup, Inzamam was a hero in the country. He was being credited for resurgence of Pakistani cricket and all. But once their team lost 2 matches in a row, the same guy became a villain. One responsible for everything that was wrong with Pakistani cricket.
I'd the privilege of watching his retirement one day match too. After the match when he was walking back into the dressing room, in front of an almost empty stadium, I really felt very sad.
I believe we from subcontinent are too emotional. We certainly lack mannerism of treating our heroes.
When they are doing good, we go full throttle to shower them with "too much to handle" love and affection..
A little drop in performance and we try to leave everyone behind in castigating them.
Is this the way we should treat our heroes ? Certainly not. At least not in my opinion.
I didn't like a bit in which Saurav Ganguly was unceremoniously dropped from the team and neither I agree with the undue criticism of Tendulkar and company.
We certainly need to grow up.
