April 26, 2010

You can count on Suresh Raina after you drop him twice.

Raina is keen. And MSD’s done well to back him, (even ahead of Nohit Sharma, imagine). The kid brings a simple cricketing intensity, there’s no side to him, no nakharas. He plays some hard cricket, loves his midwicket shots so much he forgets to play offside, loves his fielding, and doesn’t return favours, dropping catches.

When he bowls, holding back the delivery till he gauges the batsman’s movement till the last instant, you sense the masti Raina gets out of his cricket. When was the last time you saw that in an Indian cricketer – no tension, happy bowling, fielding, catching, batting.

Now you know why the twosome collectively spilled him, why Zaks dropped him. Raina is a lappa – when he’s not hitting the ball far, he’s hitting it high – it’s like aiming at a bird, a plane, superman, and marking them as the boundary.

Raina is the endearing little bully from the neighbourhood park – everybody knows he’s better than them, including him.

The IPL can be almost too easy for a player like Raina or Nohit or Yusuf – their abridged focus, some yaari-walli bowling, it’s tonk-tonk time.

While it’ll be great to see them go nuts in the T20 World Cup, these guys gotta extend their think-span overseas, and then who knows, a longer format. How ‘bout one-dayers to begin with?

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5 comments:

Naresh said...

Well what do you expect with Sachin's hand injured - obviously MI were out to drop a few. After all "it was Sachin;s hand that took all the great catches" was it not? ;-)

vmminerva said...

It will be interesting to see how Raina fares on overseas piches. If he passes that test, then perhaps there will be more to think abt.

Gaurav Sethi said...

Hi Naresh, Sachin's ambidextrous, he could've taken them with his good hand.

Gaurav Sethi said...

VM, don't think the Windies will throw up too many overseas'riddles with the pitches, should be slow, low desi; format n form are Raina's, good time to get gng away from home.

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