Manoj Tiwary: Is this the end?

Come the Sri Lanka tour of 2012, Rohit’s exceptional talent got exposed when he notched up 11 runs in five games, getting bowled five times and Tiwary was given a chance in the final two games. In one of them, he took a career-best haul of four wickets and in the other, scored a fluent 67 to help India win.

Later that year, he was in contention for a Test spot as the new selectors were determined to make radical changes. He left his calling card with a match saving 93 against a tough English attack at Mumbai, but Yuvraj Singh took away the spotlight as the Indian media thought it to be very romantic for a cancer-surviving patient to score 70 odd runs fluently and follow it up with a double century against a domestic team. So we all started hoping for a Yuvraj comeback. Lalchand Rajput, the India-A coach, brushed aside Tiwary’s contributions to focus on Yuvraj’s. And well, Tiwary didn’t do any good by getting out to Rajasthan for 42 in the Ranji match that followed. He was closest to a Test call-up but missed it, because Yuvraj Singh was back! It’s funny that when Yuvraj did get dropped, India’s requirements changed all of a sudden from that of a number six batsman to an all-rounder who could do a little of both and had recently scored two triple hundreds on the highways of Rajkot.

It’s painful to chronicle Tiwary’s career path as injuries keep coming up, like the one that made him miss India’s home leg against Pakistan and England. With defeats to England, reshuffle was in the air yet again and the Irani tie between Rest of India and Mumbai was a keenly watched affair. Tiwary scored 37 and 69 and got a place in the India-A team to face Australia. It’s unimaginable to think that he went onto batter the Australian bowling line up alongside Gautam Gambhir in that warm-up game with a masterful 129 and in a way set the tone for the series where Australia was drubbed 4-0. Sadly enough, a player who consistently scored against big oppositions on big occasions was never thought worthy of an extended run in the India setup.

There’s little to expect from here on for the Bengal captain. The Indian team is in transition and the captain has his own favourites. While the squad is being shaped for the 2015 World Cup, Tiwary might just think he still has a chance. He’d be 30 then but has only 8 ODI games under his belt at present. Shashi Tharoor once wrote how Tiwary is one of Indian cricket’s greatest tragedies, something that looked like it would be proven wrong but eventually wasn’t.

There’s a South Africa tour and the middle order looks unlikely to open up. Perhaps when Sachin retires, there might be a place, but can that be taken for granted? The sad truth of Indian cricket is that some players are given longer ropes than the others. Perhaps Dhoni could’ve thought of Tiwary as an ‘exceptional talent’, things would’ve been different then. Tiwary wouldn’t have had to miss fifteen games after a century. He (Tiwary) could try finding solace in the company of Murali Kartik, who took seven wickets against the World Champions, Australia in an ODI match and never got to play for India again.