Suresh Raina - A mixed bag of hope and inconsistency

Suresh Raina

The fans of Suresh Raina had a different but pleasant experience today as far as his bowling is concerned. When our regular bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shami Ahmed were not able to get wickets, Raina –who is not known to be a regular bowler – struck like lightening and got three very important wickets. It is heartening to note that Raina was also able to successfully contain the run rate. 10- 1 -34- 3 are very good figures indeed.

Well, this was an amazing bowling spell from Raina, who bowled in a very mature manner. Also, with every wicket, the quality of his bowling improved rapidly and this was clearly visible from his body language.

The way he has bowled with tremendous confidence, with a little guidance and coaching, he can prove to be as useful as Sir Ravindra Jadeja. Though Raina has been taking wickets now and then, but today’s timely strike has resulted in establishing Raina as a good fifth bowler.

Up till now, Suresh Raina has been treated as a dependable batsman who always gives a contribution of 35-40 runs under any conditions. But his weakness of having difficulty in playing short ball is an open secret. However, not many know that before today’s match he was having a fairly good bowling average of 36.11.

But again, even today, the lack of consistency was noticed in his batting when he got out for a duck. Commentators were saying that there was no need to attempt that shot in the first place. Perhaps he was being impulsive and this careless attitude of Suresh Raina has prevented him for being one of the top batsmen for team India, despite the fact that he has been playing for quite a while now.

Incidentally, Suresh Raina will be completing 27 years of age on 27th November 2013. Let us have a look at his background. He is a left-handed attacking middle order batsman from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. He plays for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL and happens to be the highest run getter in the IPL.

He made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka in the year 2005 when he was just 18 years of age.  However, he had to wait another 5 years before making his Test debut against Sri Lanka in 2010. He was a member of World cup winning Indian squad of 2011.

Suresh Raina happens to be the only Indian player to have scored a century in all formats of the game. Most of his fans believe that a little bit of consistency will do wonders for him, and there appears to be unlimited scope of improvement. Meanwhile, he deserves to be applauded for his very impressive performance with the ball, despite the fact that he could not do much with his bat today. Nevertheless, this should not undermine his brilliant bowling. Wish him tones of good luck for the future!