Manoj Tiwary: Lagging behind in the race

Is Manoj Tiwary losing the race against time?

It was during the 2006-07 Ranji season that Manoj Tiwary first made his presence felt in the Indian domestic circuit, amassing 796 runs at a Bradmansque average of 99.50. He was all set to make his international debut against Bangladesh in Dhaka when a freak injury in the final practice session disrupted the plans. With India’s incumbent batting line-up being arguably the best ensemble ever seen in India cricket, the young Bengali lad knew that his next opportunity wasn’t coming any time soon.

Five years have passed since, and things still haven’t improved much for Tiwary. Despite not being selected for the upcoming Champions Trophy in England, he is still on the selectors’ radar but finds himself way down the pecking order. While Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara have cemented their spots in the Indian test setup, the likes of Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane seem several miles ahead of him in the limited overs format.

Looking at Tiwary’s international record, one can’t help but concede that he has been handed a rather raw deal. He has just managed to play 8 ODIs and 3 T20 internationals since his debut in 2008. To put things in perspective, Rohit Sharma, who debuted in 2007, is a veteran of 88 ODIs and 35 T20 internationals and even Rahane, who entered the international arena in 2011, has represented India in one Test and twice the number of limited overs matches as Tiwary.

He has had his moments, but they have been too  few and far between. In his fifth appearance in Indian colours, Tiwary struck his maiden ton against the West Indies in Chennai but was surprisingly overlooked for 14 successive ODIs while players like Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir hit new lows in their international career. Quite typically, he came back with useful efforts with both bat and ball to secure a bilateral series win against Sri Lanka before being confined to the reserves bench once again.

Except the recurrent ‘his will soon get his chance’, the team management had no plausible explanation for playing a hide-and-seek game with his career.

His style of play may also have been a factor here. Batsman like Sharma and Rahane, when at their very best, ooze elegance and seem supremely talented. Some of their shots make jaws drop and, despite the lack of consistency, one feels obliged to give them a longer rope. A naturally aggressive approach, with which Yuvraj Singh or Suresh Raina bat, makes them feared opponents.

Tiwary, on the other hand, has a more workman-like approach to his art. A nudge here, a tuck on the legside and painstakingly building the innings in the middle overs, though devoid of risk and quite effective, doesn’t quite catch the eye. He lacks the ‘x-factor’, it was concurred.

All this while, as jokes and satires about him warming the bench started doing rounds on the social networks, Chotta Dada, as he is known in the Bengali cricketing circles, showed tremendous mental fortitude and carried on with his daily routine without a fuss. He would religiously turn up for the practice sessions, sweat it out in the nets, and give his teammates a lesson or two in the warm-up football games before taking up the drinks duty during the matches.

But as they say, when things go wrong they really go wrong. Coming back from an injury layoff, he had an indifferent IPL in which he scored just 146 runs in 10 outings at a pedestrian strike rate of 104 and subsequently lost his spot to an in-form Dinesh Karthik. Soon after, there was the twitter incident in which he berated the KKR management (he later claimed that his account was hacked), and there were the odd reports of him throwing tantrums in the team meetings during the IPL. A shy youngster who once turned to motivational videos of other athletes to keep the fire burning in his belly was clearly facing the heat.

Having endured a tough journey to make his mark in Indian cricket, Tiwary is beginning to realise how steep the final hurdle is. The option before him is all too familiar now – go back to domestic cricket and score heavily to get the selectors’ attention and wait for his next opportunity. Along with the runs, he could also do with some good fortune else it would be tragic to see yet another talented cricketer not fulfilling his potential for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.