5 Kerala Cricketers Who Were Billed To Make It To The National Squad But Lost Their Way

The Kerala Cricket Association is a parent body to as many as 14 districts, yet only two players from the state have gone on to play Test cricket. While Sreesanth and Tinu Yohannan had their own stories to tell, despite making it to the top-most grade of cricket, there have been several other names in Kerala cricket, who had the potential to make it big but were not able to crack the code to make it to the national squad.

Sanju Samson, a popular entity due to the IPL, went on to earn a T20I cap, while Basil Thampi earned a call-up too, but there are other players, famous in the Kerala domestic circles, who would have wished to ascend to the international level, given the talent they exhibited and the records they built for themselves.

Here are five of those:

#5 Sachin Baby

29-year-old Sachin Baby has played over 50 first-class games since 2009, but did not score a single hundred until his 25th game. He has a good domestic record in limited-overs cricket and is known to be a useful off-spinner and a sprightly fielder.

Given his credentials as a useful middle-order batsman, he was drafted into the Rajasthan Royals setup in 2013, where he got to play just one game. He had been a prolific scorer at the junior levels, but could not translate his success at a consistent level for Kerala.

He is currently the captain of the side, and played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore under Virat Kohli for two seasons, and was acquired by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for the 2018 IPL.

He did not get to play a single game in the IPL this year. He was at the receiving end of a rebellion from his Kerala teammates earlier this year, who accused him of being 'selfish and arrogant'.