A very un-Tamil Nadu-like Ranji season

2. Inconsistent top order and batting woes

While TN never really enjoyed successful opening stands last season and had constant changes in opening partners to Abhinav Mukund, this season saw some evenness in three matches as regular India opener Murali Vijay opened the batting with skipper Abhinav Mukund.

Regrettably, this did not result in any successful opening stands as the openers put up just a single hundred partnership and never managed crossing fifty on any other occasion. While in the previous year, Abhinav Mukund and Kaushik Gandhi were often among the runs, especially with the latter soaking up all the new ball pressure and making it easier for the batsmen coming in to face, this season, neither of them notched up big scores.

Skipper Mukund crossed fifty only twice in nine innings, whereas Kaushik Gandhi found himself out of the team for half the games, averaging a mere 15 after 6 innings with a top score of 35. In hindsight, from a fan’s point of view, he should have been trusted and handed a permanent spot for the whole season after carrying the top order in a breakthrough 2016-17 season.

While four batsmen in the top and middle order averaged above 50 in the previous season, with individual scores breaching 150 four times and 200 once, and the top six notching up a combined 12 centuries, the chop and change pattern of the playing XI and batting order this season saw only the Baba twins – Aparajith and Indrajith – average over 50 and score three centuries between them. The rest of the top order had only 4 centuries between them, and just two scores over 150 with the top score being 159. While Washington Sundar notched up that highest score in the one match he opened the batting in this season, he never featured at the top again even with M Vijay gone on national duty.

While N Jagadeesan, his replacement at the top did not fare too badly, Washington, a regular opener for his club side needn’t have been pushed back to the lower middle order when he had done well in the one opportunity he got opening the batting – a classic case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ tag.