Chapastan captain Shraver Von Maver yesterday shocked the nation by implying that he may soon be hanging it up. The country's greatest ODI captain in living memory, who led the side to wins over Outnia, Sinisberg and North Antarctica 38 years ago, said he was feeling tired.

The 70-year-old Shraver, unsurprisingly the oldest player in the world, who has been known to play through injuries and has had 16 hip replacements and 18 concussions (all after age 50), was speaking after guiding his team to a win in the ICC 2054 seventh-tier league game against Greenland yesterday.

"I love the game, but it takes me too long to bowl an over now, and the recovery period after each game is getting longer," he told reporters after the game, where he bowled two overs for 70 runs and made his highest score, 12, in a decade. 

While the Chapastan Cricket Board (CCB) is empowered to appoint or sack captains and the selectors take the decision to pick or drop players, in Shraver's case it was different. 

In the early days of the millennium, Shraver had put in heroic performances with the bat and ball and lifted Chapastan cricket from mediocrity to its apex in the second decade. He assumed mythic status and was seen as a national treasure. At one stage in the late 2010s, Chapastan was the seventh best side in the world. It was then, in his late 30s, that murmurs about his retirement were doing the rounds as his performances waned. Then ensued a long string of ambivalent exchanges between him and the board.

Then CCB President Donald Haash, always aware of public sentiment, implied that the series against Chad would be his last as captain, without actually saying the words.

"If he is fit and performing, he can play," Haash had said, at his corporate office which he soon converted into a television studio.

Shraver, with the champion's mentality of his best form just being around the corner, then turned in a stellar performance against Chad. CCB and its chief were vilified on social media for even suggesting that Shraver's time was up.

"I have always said that there can never be a replacement for Shraver. And of course, as you all know, I do not like to interfere with cricketing matters," was Haash's attempt at damage control.

But those words were too little too late.

Haash's political and business careers were ruined. Shraver was reinstated, the nation rejoiced, CCB sighed relief. And there has been no talk of his retirement since. Until yesterday.

He was asked yesterday whether he would like to set a date for the retirement.

"Soon, I have to talk to my children and grandchildren, and also the board," he mumbled and went back to sleep.