The fourth Test match against England starts at Nagpur today. India is down two matches to one because the team performed very badly in the second and third Tests.

Many people are now demanding that new players replace the old and, while it is possible to find replacements for 10 of the 11, there is one player who cannot be easily dropped: Sachin Tendulkar.

Since passions run high on the question, how should the Sachin conundrum be approached? Economic theory, which economists claim has an answer to all difficult problems, perhaps suggests a method.

If we treat cricketers as factor production of entertainment services, then, in terms of labour and capital costs, the salary paid to players represents the ‘value’ of those factors. In a way, this is similar to the rent paid for land by farmers who rent it from the owners.

But what explains the differences in rents? A 19th century British economist, the famous David Ricardo, came up with a common sense theory.

Given the same inputs of labour and capital, he said, a more productive plot would fetch a higher rent than a less productive one, provided both were being used for the same purpose. Thus, if the farmer who pays rent for the land is left with less produce than he would get from another plot, he will shift to the latter.

In essence, therefore, rent could only be equal to the advantage obtained by using the site in the most productive fashion relative to an alternate location.

Super Sachin

Players like Sachin in the ‘A’ Grade of Indian cricket receive a base salary of $200,000 per year. They are also entitled to match fees, bonuses and prize money when the side wins.

Let us therefore consider his performance in One-Dayers: from a career best average of 204 in 2010 (he batted in a single ODI that year, in which he broke the records for runs in a match by a single batsman), Tendulkar’s average slid to 46.63 in 2011 and 31.50 in 2012. These are not his worst years as far as run averages are concerned.

When he made his debut in 1989, he got out for a duck and did not bat again during the year. In 1990, his average was 23.90 runs per match and in 1991, it was 34.75. His best performance in a year — barring the freak statistic for 2010 — was 69.53 runs per match in 2001.

But if we go beyond average runs as a measure of contribution to the Indian cricket team, it emerges that Sachin has been playing fewer matches over the years. Compared with a high of 39 ODIs in 1997, Sachin played just 10 matches in 2012. This was primarily on account of injuries.

During the decade 2002-12, India played 293 cricket matches. Tendulkar took part in over half (55.3 per cent) of the matches. His average during the period has been 45.88 runs per match.

Delving into the team’s performance, it emerges that of the matches during the 2002-12 period in which Tendulkar took part, the side won 88 matches, roughly half (54 per cent) of the games he took part in.

India’s overall win ratio during the period, however, stood at 58.7 per cent of concluded matches. So having Tendulkar may not have been critical for winning.

Lara and Ponting

But then there is Brian Lara to factor in. He retired in 2006-07 after a career that spanned 17 years. From 2003 to 2007, Lara played 96 matches, of which the West Indies team won just 44.7 per cent. But in the year he retired, Lara averaged 61.85 runs per match.

Ricky Ponting, on the other hand, who was in the Australian team from 1995 to 2012, provides the counter-example.

Ponting’s average of 42.57 runs in 227 matches during the 2002-12 period was slightly lower than Tendulkar’s average. But Australia won nearly three out of four matches (72.2 per cent) that he played.

During 2008-2010, he had an average of over 100 runs per match, which fell to 90 in 2011. In 2012, however, his performance was dismal, with an average of 3.33 runs per match. He therefore retired.

Enter Ricardo

So which is a better way of deciding Sachin’s future course of action: participation in wins a la Ponting or recent batting average a la Lara?

If we follow the Ponting Rule, Sachin’s current poor performance may seem a sufficient condition for dropping him. But if we adopt the Lara Rule, we would need a different criterion, which would have to be both necessary and sufficient. For that, a suitable replacement must be found.

If someone can locate such a player, Sachin can be dropped. Otherwise, we must wait for him to announce his retirement.

Or in Ricardian terms, as long as there is inferior land, better land will continue to be cultivated, which in this context means Sachin will have to be kept on till his performance drops to zero.

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