Manoj Tiwary: Is this the end?

One might call me parochial, but I just can’t help sympathize with certain Indian cricketers who are perpetually ridden with ill-fate. Mohammad Shami is one of them, for being dropped from the India squad despite putting up brave performances against Pakistan and England. Wriddhiman Saha is another, who despite being India’s best wicket-keeper is never considered worth his salt because he is not as flamboyant as one should be. This diminutive lad from Siliguri has had to constantly live under the shadow of the Indian captain in the IPL setup, while the lesser likes get game after game. And despite a steely performance against Australia at Adelaide, he wasn’t even considered for a single Test thereafter. But the name that stands out in that list is that of Manoj Tiwary, centrally-contracted Indian cricketer and Bengal captain; perhaps better known as India’s most ill-fated batsman and the one who was benched for fifteen games after scoring an ODI century!

Twitter is quite famous for the jokes that are relayed by millions from across the world. Some of the more popular Indian cricketers on Twitter have been Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja. But not lagging much behind in terms of popularity has been Manoj Tiwary, who quite essentially has been tagged a benchwarmer for life. The squad for the upcoming ODI Tri-series in the West Indies was announced just a couple of hours back. And as expected, the entire Champions Trophy squad has been retained and quite rightly so. There is no reason for chopping and changing a winning combination, but imagine what must be going through Tiwary’s mind, one of the squad probables, who now faces an incredulously long domestic season.

Hailing from Howrah, in West Bengal, Tiwary is touching 28. His prime years of batsmanship are behind him and he now faces the tough task of competing with relatively younger players for an India spot. It’s worth knowing that as he approaches thirty, it will become increasingly difficult to find a favour amongst selectors for a place in the team; remember Subramaniam Badrinath? Tiwary’s tryst with sour destiny began in 2007, when Raina was out of contention, Rohit Sharma was a good 3-4 months away from selection and Virat Kohli was still in school. That’s when a second string India team was sent to Bangladesh, as a result of the World Cup debacle. That’s when Gautam Gambhir had his second coming and that is exactly when the 22-year-old Tiwary was having a Ranji average of 99. On the eve of his ODI debut, he injured his shoulder in a fielding drill and remained out of action for a year. Nobody knows for sure what would have happened if he did debut, maybe good performances against a lesser known side would have boosted his confidence for future endevours or maybe he would’ve been sorted out by the likes of Syed Rasel and Mashrafe Mortaza. It’s pure speculation now, but what if he had produced a magical innings on debut? Would things be different then?

His second chance came in Australia as a replacement for the injured Yuvraj Singh, where a Brett Lee yorker shook him off his jet-lag on his ODI debut and like always we saw another name get forgotten in the dusty outfields of Indian cricket. It was the same place where Bengal’s prodigal son had played his first international, fifteen years back and it soon became the place where the ‘talented’ Rohit Sharma was born. The IPL was even worse, no fixed batting position and a top order of Viru, Gauti and AB – he hardly got an opportunity while Raina made merry batting at number three for Chennai. 2010 was his best year till date, a swap deal with Kolkata Knight Riders brought him bright fortune and he plundered the bowlers for runs in domestic cricket and India A tours and soon 2011 got him his third call up for India. And the drama continued – picked, dropped, no fixed batting spot, drafted in last moment and benched in the next game, but he kept trying till that magnificent 104* against West Indies at Chennai. That was his third consecutive century, with two Ranji hundreds behind him. The lad was even practicing for the ‘tennis-ball bounce’ to be faced in Australia but guess what? He was benched for fifteen games because the Indian captain felt that Rohit Sharma was an ‘exceptional talent’ and needed more chances to settle down. And that Tiwary’s chance would come later.