Year in Review: Flop ODI XI of year 2013

6) Kieron Pollard

Kieron Pollard

(Matches- 17, Runs- 322, Batting Average- 21.46, HS- 109*, 100s- 1, 50s- 0, Wickets- 6, Bowling Average- 47.16, BBI- 1/21)

‘It is not the 7 Indians who will lend a hand but the 1 West Indian who will win you the IPL tournament’.

It is a well-known and a god-approved theory that the USP of any IPL team is the performance of the West Indian in it e.g.- Narine for KKR, Gayle for RCB, Pollard and Smith for MI, Sammy for SRH. If a team has a proven West Indian performer then only will it have a shot at the IPL. Except, of course, when they play for West Indies, a T20 World Cup win you may say is good enough but with such talent in store, their inability to reciprocate their skills in the ODI format is bewildering.

Pollard is one prime example of ‘The Great IPL West Indian degenerate’, the moment he puts on a Mumbai Indians jersey he becomes one of the most destructive all-rounders of all time and the moment he removes it, he scores 6 ducks in a single calendar year. Yes, he scored 6 blobs this year, the most by any batsman, bowler, tail-ender in the year 2013.

The only player to share his sentiment has long since retired for India and was last seen leaving a match midway before retiring altogether from the Mumbai Ranji team. The only way Pollard can be presentable in the ODI team is if he bowled and somehow used his height advantage to double up as the batsman on the other side of the pitch, his records then, would soon attain statistical nirvana, at least from one end.

7) Luke Ronchi

Luke Ronchi

(Matches- 11, Runs- 139, Average- 15.44, HS-49,100s-0, 50s-0)

Frustrated at not being able to play for Australia, more so because even a player of Matthew Wade’s calibre got around 20-25 games to prove his inadequacy, Ronchi made the switch to Australia’s trans-Tasman rival around an year back in order to play international cricket.

The biggest winner? The Australian selectors.

Ronchi’s selection in the New Zealand team showed what exactly the Australian team didn’t miss and going by his recent form, he will soon be part of just a trivia question of players having represented dual countries in their career. Pity, he wasn’t born in South Africa.