The future. That’s the one thing all are concerned about. The future. That’s the one thing that always comes unannounced. It’s like a sneeze. You just cannot plan for it. Ever.
And it’s the imminent future that will concern Ruturaj Gaikwad the most. The promising 22-year-old right-hander from Pune is a relatively unknown commodity in Indian cricket.
Yet, he is someone with a lot of promise, and patience, lest it is forgotten.
Right now, we are in awe of India’s youngsters who made headlines down at the West Indies.
There’s always something interesting about a pack of talented youngbloods who surprise hosts, even more so when they happen to be situated miles away from the sub-continental comfort.
India A didn’t just win against the West Indies. They hammered one of Cricket’s uncontrollably exciting sides, a bunch of boys who’ll be men soon, hopefully engaged in a long battle to return Caribbean cricket to the throne of revival and spring of hope that now seems long overdue.
And implicit in India’s victory in the West Indies was the effort of Ruturaj Gaikwad.
With two valuable fifties, the right-hander from Pune seemed utterly in control.
Gaikwad was out one shy of what would’ve been a dogged hundred at Coolidge. The 99 had come off only 89 balls. This was a knock that made a light work of West Indies’ otherwise modest ask of 237.
The fluent cover drives, the solid front-foot defences, the back-foot punches; all of these were on display down in the five-match series.
Previously, he had made an impressive 85, coming close to scoring what went down as an opportunity to score a ton.
But what separated the 99 from 85 was that the latter came off on a more bouncier, bowling-friendly track.
But it mustn’t be held against Ruturaj that those confronting India A boys weren’t in any way closer to the famed West Indian pace battery of the yesterdays.
There’s little that anyone can do in that regard. The batman’s job was to take the side off to a decent start and hold on to an end, thus building the foundation for the others to follow.
In that regard, it must be said, that Ruturaj Gaikwad is being humble and honest in upholding the respect he has of stalwarts like Dravid, someone with whom ‘close chats’ and interactions have paved way for some success.
That said, what stood out for the mild-mannered and soft-spoken bloke was that he was the top scorer in 2 of the 5 ODIs held in the West Indies and across both sides.
That’s not a small achievement for anyone stepping on the mighty turfs where legends like Viv, Sir Sobers and if you take the recent past, then Brian Lara batted with undulating admiration.
But what concerns the general cricket lover, regardless of what format one likes, is whether some eyebrows were raised when Gaikwad wasn’t picked in the ODI squad.
A few days ago, what made national headlines was that Saurav Ganguly raised a case for Gill’s omission for the touring squad to the Caribbean. The point is, is anyone willing to bat for Ruturaj Gaekwad? This is a batsman with a List-A average of 57, the highest score of an unbeaten 187 and over 2000 runs from just 38 innings.
