Fate Matters

Indian middle order had been so strong in the last decade that nobody was getting a chance to make his debut as a middle order batsman. Last batsman to do so was Yuvraj who did it back in 2003. But suddenly, two batsmen, Subramaniam Badrinath and Wriddhiman Saha are making their debut in the Indian middle order in the ongoing test against South Africa. Have a look at the first class record of these two players:

Player	Matches	Innings	Runs	Average	100/50
Badrinath	83	120	6189	58.38	22/26
Saha	24	40	1256	35.88	3/5

For Badrinath, it all started in a Duleep Trophy match against England A when he scored an unbeaten century to chase a target of 501 in the fourth inning against an attack comprising of Simon Jones and Sajid Mahmood. That was way back in 2003-04. He never looked back after that and is the most consistent batsman of Indian domestic cricket since then. At times, he seemed to be better option for the Indian middle order than Yuvraj Singh but never got a chance to prove this. Situation was so frustrating for him that he had to beg to the selectors for one chance to fail. Many times he got selected in the squad but never made it to final eleven. He could have made it had he been there in Bangladesh when Laxman got injured and his Tamil Nadu teammate Murali Vijay, who is basically an opening batsman, played in the middle order. But much to his delight, India’s injury problems continued and finally he is getting a chance against South Africa.

Having seen his journey towards test team, one can imagine how difficult it had been for the players to earn India cap in recent days. But that is not the case for everybody. Certainly not for Wriddhiman Saha. His fortune started to favor him right from the start. He made his debut for Bengal in 2007-08 season only after Deepdas Gupta decided to join ICL. And then he was picked by the Knight Riders under their policy to groom the local talent. He performed just enough to keep his place in both the side but never was a contender for selection in the Indian team. But suddenly he got call from national side. This was a surprise for many reasons. Firstly, Indian selectors rarely used to pick a reserve wicketkeeper for a home series. And there were at least two wicketkeepers, Dinesh Karthik and Parthiv Patel who had better case for selection than Saha. Both of them have better records and performed better in the recently concluded Ranji season as well. The call was so unexpected that even Saha termed it as a pleasant “surprise”. Apart from that, selectors picked two reserve fast bowlers but not a single reserve batsman which finally worked in Saha’s favor. They added Rohit Sharma to the squad once it became clear that Laxman won’t be available but only to injure himself and leave the team management no choice with other than to pick Saha as a specialist batsman.

So finally, as it happened, a wicketkeeper who didn’t deserve a place in Indian team even as a wicketkeeper is playing as a specialist batsman. This is not just a case of a player getting better opportunity, this is frustrating for all those who deserve that place more than him. Being an Indian I really wish that he will leave all this out of his mind and perform to the best of his abilities. But being honest, I can’t see his test career going any further. After all, good fortune must have some limit.