5 reasons why Suresh Raina deserves another chance in the ODI team

#1 He has a proven record in crunch games as well as in England

Suresh Raina spent the majority of 2011 World Cup warming the benches. When he was finally given a chance to play, he responded with match-winning knocks against Australia in the quarter-final and against Pakistan in the semi-final.

In the 2015 World Cup, he played a crucial innings against Pakistan and more importantly, when India were just beginning to stare down at the possibility of a shock defeat against Zimbabwe, Raina stood up to the task and scored a match-winning century.

Even at the franchise level, Raina has won endless games for CSK with his cool demeanor. His experience can come in handy if, at any point, India start staring down the barrel in a big tournament like a World Cup.

Raina has also got a good record in English conditions. In the 2011 tour, he was one of the team’s standout batsmen in the ODI series.

When the team was low on morale following their drubbing in the 2014 Test series in England, Raina lifted the morale of the entire team with his charismatic presence on the field and scoring a match-winning century in the first ODI of the series.

Sourav Ganguly described his innings as “Probably one of the best ODI centuries by an Indian batsman in overseas conditions”.

He deservingly walked away with the Man of the Series Award in that series.

The major struggle for Raina has been on bouncy pitches and with most of the English pitches unlikely to support steep bounce, he can prove to be one of the most crucial players for the team in the 2019 World Cup if he is given a license to go out there and just express himself, without any pressure.