Amid all the David Warner-Mitchell Johnson drama, the furore has put into question the awkward question even the long-serving community athlete must face: when to give up.
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Giving up is a prospect that fundamentally goes against the grain of playing sport.
We can debate all day about whether Warner deserves a farewell tour or should have already been edged out.
That's what everyone from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to former professional boxer Anthony Mundine have been weighing in on all week after Johnson's inflammatory column attacking Warner's right to pick a retirement point.
Johnson went in for what former teammate Brad Haddin has described as an "aggressive attack" that was more on Warner's character than the issue.
That aside, he has stepped on the highly contentious and personal point of pulling up stumps.
For any athlete, like Warner, there is a sense of what some call the Sword of Damocles effect hanging over your head - the constant threat something bad will happen to those in a position of power.
There will always be someone faster, stronger and more fierce pushing through the ranks.
Even in community-level sport there is the juggle selectors must make, often each week, weighing up head-over-heart needs in the pursuit of sporting glory.
The same can be argued in seemingly individual-based sports, such as athletics.
More than six years ago, this reporter questioned the rhetoric about Ballarat javelin thrower Kathryn Mitchell being past her elite prime. Mitchell was 35 years old and training smarter, physically and mentally.
She had staked a worlds qualifier of 63.23 metres for London 2017 - well clear of the 61.4m standard - and put forward her name to become Australia's oldest female athlete contesting an IAAF world track-and-field championships.
A year later, Mitchell won Commonwealth Games gold and, now aged 41, continues to press for international selection with far younger, flashier talent in the ranks.
If an experienced athlete can - and still is - able to perform at the highest levels they can, who are we to say they are done if they are among the rare band of athletes who have a choice in the matter.
One key lesson we can all take in sport is that statistics are only part of the story, unfortunately too many people spout such numbers as gospel.
Warner's worth is also in what he brings to the team now and, polarising as he might publicly be, that is for his wider team and selectors to determine. The personal discussions about this are the ones that should be behind closed doors.
Johnson's job post-cricket is to demand headline space and be outspoken. His controversial stance has surely achieved this.
But Johnson has also stepped into the highly fragile space where we do not want to promote a closed-up boys' club yet at the same time we do not want him repeatedly airing his dirty laundry with the Australian Test team.
While entitled to his opinion, Johnson's line of reasoning has put a negative vibe surrounding the opening Test of the Australian summer which gets underway in Perth on December 14.
As cricket fans, let us hope Warner can channel whatever he has got into a resounding finish. Like him or not, Johnson has branded a kind of undeserving underdog and Australians can hardly help but cheer that.
