Haladhar Das
While the rain played spoilsport at Brisbane, and promising to do so in Sydney too, a ray of sunshine broke through.
I just read about Haladhar Das, a wicketkeeper-batsman from very humble roots (he hails from a small village in Orissa) and cannot help but think why were the nineties so bleak in terms of quality wicketkeepers who could just bat a bit. Right now we have no dearth for quality wicketkeeper-batsman – Dhoni being the numero uno, Karthik pushed his way into the Indian Team just on the basis of his batting (and also out of it currently only because of his batting, anyways I think he deserves more chances), and remember Parthiv Patel (yeah the one to whom Steve Waugh retorted in the last Australian tour that he has been playing cricket even before Patel was born) – he has been scoring prolifically in the domestic arena (had he been scoring such runs few years back, Dhoni would have found it very difficult to break into the Indian team); and now Haladhar Das. Where were the wicketkeepr-batsmen in the late nineties and early years of present decade? Anyways because of that problem, at least India found one of its premier batsmen – Dravid saved his ODI career owing to the same problems.
I’ll be surely following the career of Haladhar Das and hope he gives Dhoni, Karthik, Patel some sleepless nights, and the Indian Team a happy dilemma to be in.
Rakesh
utkarsh
Kunal
I think the resurgence of wicketkeeper batsmen owes a lot to Gilchrist. Ever since he came in, teams have looked upon their wicket keepers to also score some runs. Sometimes, the teams have sacrificed the keeping abilities to find someone who could bat (for example Rahul Dravid), but most teams ended up with finding keepers who messed up both the jobs over a period of time (Ramdin and Prior, for example).
The keeper is no longer looked upon just as a transition between the middle order and the tail enders. Boucher and dhoni and Gilchrist could have made into the team based on their batting abilities.
But I dont think that Dhoni the batsman, would be under any pressure. I think , over time , selectors will ease him out of the wicket keeping role and make sure he doesn’t have all the pressure in the world on his shoulders. Dhoni as specialist fielder and Karthik as batsman-keeper seems to be a good combination to me. The point in making Dhoni only a fielder and not the keeper is to keep him away from burning out.
utkarsh
February 6, 2008 at 12:49 pm
utkarsh saab .. you forgot .. andy flower .. alec stewart etc
The biologist
February 6, 2008 at 4:40 pm
a lot has changed in indian cricket since john wright became the coach…the mentality of the indian team and thus of domestic teams have changed….we are now getting so many good fielders…at one time robin singh was the only one who could fly and catch the ball…
harsh
February 6, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Please give him a chance at Team India.
Ramakanta
February 7, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Utkarsh, I agree that Gilchrist is the one who changed the perception … and even I hope Dhoni is kept in team as specialist batsman, being a captain, a wicketkeeper, and a premier batsman of the team would be really strenuous…
The biologist, the andy(s) were good, but nowhere close to Gilchrist
andy flower had his major chunk of success only against India.
harsh, eve I credit John Wright to the resurgence on Indian team.. hope Kirsten too is good …
Ramakanta, ohh!! I wish we had such powers
Kunal
February 7, 2008 at 5:50 pm