Suresh Raina's quest to rediscover the lost spark
Suresh Raina's quest to rediscover the lost spark
There's an innate sense of 'what's next' when a batsman can belie his cherubic 19-year-old face to amass 972 runs at a strike-rate of 107 in 12 Ranji Trophy innings. That he can offer wicket-keeping services to go with all his leather clubbing is a double whammy. The beauty of unruined youth is the promise of limitless possibilities - of new ideas and perspectives. And that's why cricket is perpetually in search of its next Sachin Tendulkar. Which is why a Kagiso Rabada and a Haseeb Hameed are so celebrated, so early.
Suresh Raina charted a not too dissimilar route into the senior national side all those years ago. Months after a handy performance in the Under-19 World Cup of 2004 - incidentally also in Bangladesh - Raina was identified as a worthy candidate to add muscle to a slowly ageing Indian middle order. That he was considered ahead of 'Player of the Tournament' Shikhar Dhawan was a testament to his all-round utilities to the side. Rahul Dravid saw Raina bat in the National Cricket Academy (NCA) nets a few months later and acknowledged to have been enamoured by the 'talented kid's' skillset.
"There was something about the way he batted in that net," the former captain famously told The Sunday Guardian. "He was obviously a young talented kid and when he first came into the side a month later, you knew there was something different about him. He had the strokemaking ability and it seemed natural to back him."
Greg Chappell, who took over as India coach not too long after, went as far as to call the the 20-year-old "the complete package" and made it his coaching mission to see that the 'kid' turned his potential to greatness.
But international cricket at the very top is where the lines between prodigious talents and above average young players begin to widen. There are myriad tales of sportsmen who sparkled at the start only to fritter away and fall by the wayside - a phenomenon more commonly remembered in India as 'The Kambli Syndrome'.
But Raina wasn't one of them. His Test career may have failed to take off each time a short ball did, but the Uttar Pradesh batsman had seen some phenomenal highs in the shorter forms, where he forged a career out of making the unfancied task seem fancy. Those diving efforts in the ring, the filler overs in a run defence and even the heave-to-midwicket-when-all-else-fails contributed to the making of Raina - a World Cup winner.
But 12 years is a significant time in sport for narratives to flip. In October 2016, when Raina batted over 45 minutes at the Feroz Shah Kotla nets under the watchful eyes of MS Dhoni, his then captain and long-time confidante, he inspired little confidence in anyone let alone himself. Barely fifteen minutes after that strangely subdued session, BCCI issued a media release ruling him out of the second One-Day International against New Zealand. It was attributed to him having not recovered sufficiently from the recently-contracted bout of illness. It was body blow (pun not intended) for the 29-year-old, who'd endured a forgettable World Twenty20 campaign (41 runs from 5 games at 10.25) only months ago and whose last ODI appearance came way back in October 2015.
Walking across the stumps in nervous anticipation of the yorker, and losing his stumps to a Rabada yorker in front of a packed Wankhede, could still well be Raina's last act in ODI cricket. If so, it would be a highly anti-climactic ending for a man once called the 'complete package'.
The inexplicable loss of form, the untimely illness and the emergence of Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya may have well slammed the door on his face at least for the immediate future. Unless of course, the narrative flips once again, as it did for Yuvraj Singh in the Ranji season and as Kohli envisions it could.
"Ya, he hasn't played... I won't say for a while because he played the T20 World Cup so that's not too many series," Kohli said. "We still believe that he has enough to contribute in the short formats for India. Again, this series will be an opportunity for a lot of guys to get back into the groove or seal their spots or whatever you want to call it. The reason why everyone is included in the squad is because we believe in them, we have faith in them, they can contribute now and in the future as well.
"At the end of the day it's up to the individual after that, how well prepared he is or how eagerly he is waiting for the opportunity. From the management and the selectors' point of view, they can only do so much in showing faith and getting a guy into the squad and it's up to the individual. It's about striking the right balance and hopefully he does get back into his groove because I feel he certainly has a lot to offer for Indian cricket, especially in the shorter formats and he can start with this series onwards, there's no problem with that."
That the team management still believe Raina has enough to offer in short-format cricket ought to be his big lifeline. That they do so despite him having played so little cricket in the past six months is a testament to the team's trust in his abilities. Still only 30, Raina will want to believe he has enough to play at least one more World Cup. But with the next batch of Under-19s already on its way to the senior sides, he may not have too many opportunities to make his case.
Thus, these three T20Is against England and the ensuing domestic limited-overs series automatically assume extra significance for the southpaw. A good show may bring him back to the fringes of the ODI side too while a no-show will push him further down.
And as Kohli reasons, opportunity or the lack of it thereof will no longer hold as an excuse. It's Raina's to win or lose from here on. He need only to look at his new teammate Pant and his own journey from 12 years ago to rediscover that lost spark.
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