JOIN USRaina's chance to take a firm step forward
For a cricketer who is into his seventh season in international cricket, Suresh Raina is yet to fulfill the promise that once earned him the sobriquet of ‘Next Lara.’
Now, the next 38 days will be crucial for Raina because they will have a massive role in deciding the course of his career. In the tri-series beginning on February 5, he will perforce have to produce a few impact performances to stay within the range of selectors’ radar.
Any slip up will raise questions about his place in the one-day squad, and will put his ambitions to extend a 15-match Test career in serious jeopardy. The Uttar Pradesh left-hander’s inability to deal effectively with bouncers has already made a blot on his career, and more alarmingly he had a rather modest run last year in the one-dayers, perceived to be his strong suit.
In 29 one-dayers since January 2011, Raina has made 722 runs at 31.39 with four fifties, and admittedly, those figures don’t look damning at all. But scratch the top, you’ll find an entirely different story.
The majority of those runs have come from 10 ODIs against England, and his 377 runs at 41.88 helped his average to stay above 30. Raina had below par outings in this period against the West Indies and South Africa. In the 11 matches that he played against the West Indies in 2011, Raina made 164 runs at 18.22 with a lone fifty, and scored 111 runs at 22.20 from five matches against the Proteas.
West Indian and South African pacers had given him a thorough work over even in the one-dayers, and Raina needs runs in the tri-series, also involving Sri Lanka and Australia. The southpaw will certainly face a stern test of skill and character against the Australian pace bowlers, and the likes of Brett Lee, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc have been in splendid form of late.
Sri Lanka too have the dangerous Lasith Malinga in their ranks and Raina will have to face these merciless hit men on lively pitches at the WACA and Brisbane. It’s quite a task as even the minutest fragility of a batsman will be laid bare at these venues. Raina, obviously, can no longer mask his vulnerability against the short-pitched balls.
That’s about external competition and technical inadequacies but Raina faces bigger contest from within his team. The previous year was all about the growing maturity of Virat Kohli, and he has already made it to the Test side riding on some exemplary efforts in the one-dayers. The Delhi has already made some giant strides in cementing his place in the traditional format with a few gutsy knocks in the last fortnight.
In the list of frontrunners to replace the legendary names in the Indian middle-order, Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara too has overtaken Raina, even before playing a single Test! In a way that’s a severe indictment of Raina’s abilities, and a subtle acknowledgement that he is no longer a prominent name in the scheme of things.
By scoring a hundred against the West Indies at Chennai, Manoj Tiwary too has indicated his growing comfort at the highest level and there are players like Ajinkya Rahane and Abhinav Mukund, staking claim for soon-to-be-vacant berths in the Test team.
Now Raina is without his own space. His gritty fifties against the West Indies at Jamaica and England at the Lord’s have been reduced to colourless footnotes that remind us of his unrealised potential. His tidy off-spinners and agility on the field will have no value unless he amasses some impressive runs Down Under.
Raina will have to conquer Australia, Sri Lanka and his own brittleness – mental as well as technical – in the tri-series before the door shuts on him with an irrevocable force.