5 Test Legends who had a less successful career in ODI Cricket
Following his stunning knocks of 149 and 51 in the opening Test match against England, Indian Skipper Virat Kohli climbed to the top of Test Ranking for Batsman by upstaging banned Australian batsman Steve Smith. Already the top-rated Batsman in ODI Cricket, he became the first batsman since AB de Villiers in 2012 to occupy the top spot on both ODI and Test Rankings simultaneously.
It is a huge achievement for Kohli as he joins the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting by accomplishing this feat, and with this, he has solidified his stance as the greatest batsman of this generation. It is not an easy task for a player to expertise in both formats of the game and only a few special manage to do this in their cricketing career.
Since Test Cricket is still considered the Numero Uno form of the game, there have been a large number of cricketers in the past, and present, who put all their focus on Test cricket, and emerged as legends of that form, but, at the same time, struggled to solidify their place in the shorter format.
Here are 5 such players who, despite being legends of Test Cricket, had a rather less successful career in ODI cricket.
Thilan Samaraweera
(Sri Lanka)
Thilan Samaraweera is probably the most underrated Sri Lankan batsman in the history of cricket. He is so underrated that, despite being a regular member of the Sri Lankan team for more than a decade, he is rather unknown to a majority of the cricket fans.
Part of the famed Sri Lankan batting order that composed the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, Samaraweera was a rock solid batsman in Test Cricket. In fact, his records and figures in Test Cricket are among the best for Sri Lankan batsmen. 5,462 runs in 81 Test matches at an average of 48.76 - These are the figures of the flamboyant batsman from Columbo.
However, his ODI never kicked off despite him playing his first and last match 13 years apart. Despite him playing 81 Test matches, Samaraweera only got a chance to play 53 ODI matches for Sri Lanka. Never a good player of the white ball, he only managed to score 862 runs at a meager average of 27.6, more than 20 points below his Test average. He sure was a legend in Test Cricket, but was not even a shadow of himself in ODI cricket.