The players and public and even a govt.are entitled to hero worship but not the true scribe of the game.Cricket has spawned writers of every shade for an aeon now. Neville Cardus( 1888-1975 )is still being hailed in the literary world of the game as he was as much a writer as he was a critic. His imagery and a suave flowing language apart, he could be a merciless critic.To him the game mattered more than the  transient,even if brilliant, players of the day. And though he too was soft on his heroes,but never had second thoughts on pulling them up on faults.Today,true critics of the game is a vanishing tribe. The last two weeks of 'test 200 ' overdrive saw identical paeans sung  by every writer,in every paper.Wish we too had a critic, who at least on the eve of the Wankhede event,would give us , the key failures that propelled Sachin to greater heights and  which were no less significant than his successes, in this phenomenal career stretch of 24
years.A true Critic is like a diamond cutter. He unsparingly grinds  it to give that gleam which makes it a jewel