5 Indian cricketers who deserved a longer run

#5 Manoj Tiwary

Manoj Tiwary: A victim of injury and ill fate

The backbone and arguably the best batsman Bengal has produced after Sourav Ganguly, even ahead of current India wicket-keeper- Wriddhiman Saha is Manoj Tiwary. It is indeed curious to know why the Bengal captain has never been given the long rope by the selectors.

On the back of a few incredible knocks in the 2007-08 Ranji trophy, Tiwary was rewarded with a ticket on the flight to Australia for the Commonwealth Bank Series. Unfortunately, the Howrah born youngster was castled on debut in Brisbane by a deadly yorker from none other than Brett Lee. What was even more unfortunate was that he was not considered for the next three years.

Three years later, Tiwary made his comeback against the West Indies. However, getting sporadic chances and being in and out of the team after the tour did not help his cause. Playing in the 5th ODI against West Indies, Tiwary came into bat when India had lost two wickets for 1 run. He proved his selection right by scoring an unbeaten century for which he was awarded the Man of the Match.

Despite his heroic efforts, Tiwary was dropped after that century.

44 matches later, having toiled hard in the Ranji Trophy, where he added another facet to his game, he made a comeback as an all-rounder replacing Rahul Sharma at Colombo. Yet again he proved his selection picking up four wickets to go with the 21 runs. He followed it up with a brilliant 65 in the next game at Pallekele. Once again, he was in the squad for the Commonwealth Bank tri-series and the Asia Cup in 2012 but failed to get any chances.

He was then picked for a lone match against Bangladesh in 2014 and played what is now his last ODI at Harare in Zimbabwe. In an era under Dhoni, where the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Yusuf Pathan were given chance after chance despite lack-lustre performances, we can only wonder why the former Knight Riders and Daredevils batsman was not given his fair share of opportunities.