There is no doubting that Sachin Tendulkar [Images] is the best cricketer India has produced, and, rightly, he is revered as a cricketing god by his fans.

The Mumbai batsman, who made his international debut as a 16-year-old, has broken nearly every batting record in both ODIs and Tests and is well on course to add the remaining few to his name before he hangs up his boots.

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There was a time when an Indian side without Tendulkar could not even be imagined. But all good things have to come to an end, and the emergence of a young brigade, coupled with a spate of injuries, have put Tendulkar's performances under scrutiny.

The following table lists Tendulkar's performance in Test cricket in each calendar year. For five consecutive years (between 1997 and 2001) he averaged more than 60. But it hasn't been as rewarding since then, and in his last four years (since 2005) runs have come at an average of about 42 -- which is still a very good average, but not upto the standards he set over the years.

Tendulkar in each calendar year:

Year	Mts	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	100	50	0
1989	4	6	0	215	59	35.83	0	2	0
1990	7	10	1	373	119*	41.44	1	2	1
1991	2	4	0	78	40	19.50	0	0	0
1992	7	11	1	419	148*	41.90	3	0	2
1993	8	9	2	640	165	91.42	2	5	0
1994	7	11	1	700	179	70.00	2	3	0
1995	3	4	2	58	52*	29.00	0	1	0
1996	8	15	0	623	177	41.53	2	2	1
1997	12	17	1	1000	169	62.50	4	3	0
1998	5	9	1	647	177	80.87	3	1	0
1999	10	19	3	1088	217	68.00	5	4	3
2000	6	10	1	575	201*	63.88	2	1	0
2001	10	18	2	1003	155	62.68	3	6	0
2002	16	26	1	1392	193	55.68	4	5	3
2003	5	9	0	153	55	17.00	0	1	2
2004	10	15	5	915	248*	91.50	3	2	0
2005	6	10	0	444	109	44.40	1	3	0
2006	8	12	1	267	63	24.27	0	1	1
2007	9	16	2	776	122*	55.42	2	6	0
2008	7	13	1	511	154	42.58	2	1	1

The following table gives Tendulkar's performances in each progressive span of 25 matches. He was at his prime in the third and fourth spans (that is between Test no. 51 to 100). However, the latest span is the worst of his career.

Tendulkar's progress in each span of 25 matches:

Match	Inns	NO	Runs	Avg	HS	100s	50s	0s	SR
1 - 25	37	3	1522	44.76	165	5	8	3	48.20
26 - 50	40	5	1916	54.74	179	6	8	1	53.84
51 - 75	42	4	2557	67.29	217	11	8	3	58.93
76 - 100	41	3	2410	63.42	201*	8	10	3	56.27
101 - 125	41	6	1876	53.60	248*	5	7	2	50.79
126 - 150	43	4	1596	40.92	154*	4	8	2	55.22

During his distinguished career, Tendulkar has suffered many injuries, but it is the famous 'tennis elbow' injury which seems to have cost him the most.

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It was in 2004 that Tendulkar was troubled by a tennis elbow for the first time and since then he is not the same batsman we all have known him. It not only diminished his batting powers, but also signalled the start of an injury-ridden last few years for the batting maestro.

We take a look as how his performance has been affected ever since he developed this injury.

	Overall	Before Tennis-elbow	After Tennis-elbow
Tests	150	114	36
Inns	244	184	60
NO	25	19	6
Runs	11877	9470	2407
Hs	248*	241*	248*
Avg	54.23	57.39	44.57
100	39	33	6
50	49	37	12
Inns/100	6.26	5.58	10.00

As the above table clearly shows, not only has Tendulkar's average dipped by 13 points after the injury, he is taking 10 innings to score a hundred on an average as against his earlier rate of 5.58!

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The following table lists Tendulkar's performance against each country pre-tennis elbow and post-tennis elbow periods.

Tendulkar's average against Bangladesh and Pakistan has improved (more than 161 points against Bangladesh), but declined against major nations like Australia [Images], England [Images], South Africa [Images] and Sri Lanka [Images].

	Before tennis elbow			After tennis elbow			Change in Avg.
Opponent	Mts	Runs	Avg	Mts	Runs	Avg
Australia	19	1789	57.71	6	563	51.18	-6.53
Bangladesh	1	18	18.00	4	538	179.33	+161.33
England	16	1683	76.50	6	311	31.10	-45.40
New Zealand [Images]	16	1062	48.27	-			-
Pakistan	10	600	40.00	8	457	45.70	+5.70
South Africa	14	948	37.92	6	254	28.22	-9.70
Sri Lanka	13	1124	80.29	6	284	25.82	-54.47
West Indies [Images]	16	1328	57.74	-			-
Zimbabwe	9	918	76.50	-			-

The reason why we are stressing on the tennis elbow injury is because that injury, in someways, has represented a turnaround in Tendulkar's career. Since recuperating from that injury, the 35-year-old has changed his batting style completely and now seems content to defend and give bowlers the respect, unlike the Tendulkar of the 1990s.

The following table perhaps gives the perfect idea about how the things have changed. Before tennis elbow, Tendulkar was averaging more than 62 in India's victories, but since then his contributions have dropping at an alarming rate. He now averages just over 37 in India's victories -- a sharp fall of 25 points!

Tendulkar's contribution in India's victories:
(excluding matches against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh)

	Mts	Inns	NO	Runs	Avg	HS	100	50	0
Before tennis elbow	27	42	7	2188	62.51	194*	8	7	2
After tennis elbow	11	21	2	714	37.58	109	1	6	0

However, despite everything, we all know that Tendulkar still is a force to reckon with and much better than any of the youngsters around. But, honestly speaking, he is nowhere near his best.

But never count a genius out. We all want to believe that Tendulkar can still entertain us for another couple of years, though it all depends how his body responds. It is best to leave it to him to decide when to call it quits.