All good things have to end one day or the other.In sport particular and in life in general, it is the fitness and then performance.One thing I and my age group who were born just days after independence can say without any hesitation that ,we in our life time will never see Fab four spinners and fab Four batsmen operating at the same time. We saw Gavaskar/vishvanath,kumble/Bhajji,sehwag/---, etc etc,kapil/srinath, srinath/venkatesh prasad.,but never 4 at a time.
Gavaskar and Kapil were chugged along till records were broken and nobody retired as gracefully as Merchant.Of course it is a debatable point ,what would have Vijay Merchant done under todays circumstances.
