No more encores for the super stars

It was an exhilarating World Cup, but it was also one of the saddest. Not just because India came so near and yet remained so far. But because many players said their final good byes. Some never even made it to South Africa (yet if they had, who knows, they might have dominated proceedings there).
Like Steve Waugh, who was the only player in the whole of Australia who actually believed till the last moment that he had a chance to make it to the final team.Everyone else knew that the moment Ponting replaced him as captain, it was curtains for Waugh. Yet, could anyone miss his presence in this all-conquering Aussie team? Its palpable belligerence, its bristling arrogance, it’s complete self-belief came from the personality of the Waugh who had the gall to say that famous line to Herschelle Gibbs, ‘‘You have just dropped the World Cup mate!’’
The gall because in that crucial match against South Africa at the last World Cup, with his team on the verge of being knocked out, Waugh had just begun his innings. There was no way he would have known then that his would be the match-winning innings. No way he would have known unless he was a cocky SOB. Which is what Steve Waugh was: a gentleman in non-cricketing matters with a heart of gold, but where cricket was concerned, a master at psyching the opposition out before a ball was bowled.
His brother’s presence was far more benign. Who could have imagined that twins could be so dissimilar?
Mark was never as combative or as determined, but when on song his batting was worth going miles to see. Given Hayden’s very ordinary run of scores in this tournament, Mark Waugh couldn’t have done worse. But the grace he would have brought to the middle would have shown that fast scoring isn’t just about a brutal bat and sledge-hammer shots.
Shane Warne didn’t make it to the Cup either except as a character in some particularly silly TV ads. Pity, really, if the drug he took was as innocuous as he said it was, because he is as much a delight to watch as Brett Lee, a striking contrast in their blondness, one running in like a predatory animal, body set at high speed the other walking in to bowl, mind set at high speed.
Jonty Rhodes. Can it possibly be that the man whom every cricketer wants to emulate on the field will never be seen again on it? For someone whose fielding was always about taking physical risks, Rhodes had a surprisingly injury-free career. But now, when it was to be his World Cup swansong, he breaks a finger! The cricket fates can be cruel.
Then his teammates, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, one of the great fast bowling pairs of all time, this time sadly diminished. Pollock, minus captaincy, will still be around, but what a sad end to the man we called ‘White Lightning’, ignominiously dropped from the team and replaced by an unproven youngster!
Why don’t selectors have the grace to give our heroes a dignified exit? And the other fast bowling pair, Akram and Waqar, dreaded mates to opponents, but, sadly for Pakistan cricket, dreadful foes within the team.
The Cup will come back in four years, but these names will never come back. We will now only see them in replays and wonder at the magic they wrought.