As India’s tour of Australia has worn on, the coverage has become preoccupied with fading veterans - Steve Smith, Usman Khawaja, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli – and speculation about whether somebody’s decent score is a last hurrah, or if a lack of one is a terminal sign. A preoccupation with whether body language or temper tantrums or patterns of dismissal mean one thing or another, whether any of these interpretations can tell us how much longer they can push on, or how close to the end they might be.
Sport obsesses about retirements, about endings. Will a player will finish on their terms or carry on too long? God forbid they are forced out too soon. Perhaps these are symbolic little deaths, a way to come to grips with the idea in life. The sporting version of kids getting a rabbit or a budgie. But the tendency strays into the ghoulish, hanging noses over the fence to stare at great players and waiting for them to drop. The enjoyment of what a player does can be lost in wondering what they might do next.
