End of a cricketing generation!

Today is perhaps the last day when we would be seeing the bulk of the golden generation of Indian Cricket play together. Dravid, it seems, would hang his boots, Laxman may too and Tendulkar might not be far away. Ganguly is already in the commentators box and the way Sehwag plays, sustainability is not his mantra. I'm not at once saying that bowlers like Kumble, Zaheer and Harbhajan had nothing to do with the success India enjoyed in test cricket for the last decade but surely the top 5 I mentioned would be the poster boys of Indian cricket.
All of them combined several ingredients in Indian test cricket team's recipe for success. If it was Viru's aggression, Rahul's grit, Laxman's resilience, Ganguly's fearlessness or Tendulkar pure passion, all of it combined rather well. We can clearly see that when any of it was missing or on decline, the results were not up to the mark. Believe me folks, the talent of this caliber playing together comes once in couple generations and I would argue that it will not be until another decade that you will see something like this. Although, people doubt the short-lived no.1 status of the test team, it took a while to get there and not until India achieved the distinction of not losing to England in a test series for a period of 15 years and being the closest rival to an all conquering Australian team in the last decade.
For all the failures post world-cup, I still think that fans from my generation have been treated to something special. Imagine waking up on the eve of test match next time to know that there won't be the wall at no. 3 after the openers have failed or the little master on song for a session or two after lunch. We must understand and appreciate this because signs are that it's going to be back to 90's for a while. So, as we control our emotions, sit back and thank our heroes for giving the nation so much joy and pride!