People will point towards Tendulkar's greatness, his record, how he has been a tireless performer for India and how he was the top scorer in the first innings of this test match. People will point out that others had equal responsibility, but the fact also is that Tendulkar let us down twice in this match - in the first innings by getting out when he should have guided the team to safety (Laxman remained not out on 50 right?) and in the second innings, he gets out for a duck. A Duck.
Every time it matters, he fails. He comes back from an injury, scores a hundred, everyone sings praises and he starts flopping and flops the worst when it matters the most. But he is given another chance to do god knows what. Does he really deserve a spot in the team? Seriously - he has flopped as miserably as a bunch of Mithun films - oh bad analogy - Mithun films I hear break even and turn in a small profit for his producer.
One might argue who will replace him, even if it is for a single test and what if the replacement performs as badly but how does it matter? We have a 33 year old who is not performing anyway when his peers, people like Jayasuriya, Lara, Ponting, Warne are putting in everything into their game and winning it for their teams despite their age, injuries and "limitations". Does it not make sense in giving our greatest player a signal that he really is not indispensable? That we won't tolerate non-performance?
Drop him. Don't rest him for an injury - publicly drop him for non-performance and let's see him come back into the team hungry for runs, and desperate to prove himself as the greatest because right now he is anything but that.
P.S. He might score a century in a drawn match or be a top scorer in a low scoring match and India might win a test match, but it doesn't matter. We trusted his ability to deliver and he has failed repeatedly, now he has to win it back or go run his restaurant.
P.S: "He" means Tendulkar not Obi :-)
