Follow UsA PTI report on Tuesday night suggested that Indian wicket-keeper batter Wriddhiman Saha is about to announce his retirement from international cricket. Moreover, he has also opted out of the Bengal Ranji Trophy squad as well. The report suggested that Indian cricket management has informed that they are considering Saha for the home series against Sri Lanka. This lead us to name the 10 unluckiest Indian cricketers who could have been more successful if played in a different era.
When a general of great talent and courage was recommended to him, Napoleon would always ask "Is he lucky?"
Now the five-letter word 'luck' has become pretty significant in Indian cricket. India is a huge country with a population of 138 crores and two things are mostly discussed- Bollywood and Cricket. If anyone goes through the maidans across the country, he/she can trace almost one crore young kids are there for playing the game and want to make it professional. Amongst this crore, making it to the final eleven of the country is one of the toughest jobs. Some cricketers are lucky enough as their hard work paid off and the dreams came true while there are another group of people who does all the hard work and other necessary things to do but that four-letter word 'luck' does cruelty to them.
Read Also: 10 most underrated test cricketers of all time
Now, this article focuses on those who were highly eligible for getting a long go in the blue jersey but their luck factor was always against them.
Top 10 Unluckiest Indian cricketers
#1 Robin Uthappa
Inspite of scoring runs heavily at the domestic level and IPL, Robin Uthappa was not lucky enough to serve the Indian team for a long time.
Scoring 1230 runs in his first 31 list A games at an average of 39 helped him earn his Indian ODI cap on 15th November 2006. On that very day, he scored a valiant 86 opening the innings against a bowling attack comprising James Anderson, Liam Plunkett. His score helped India to pass the required 289 runs expanding just 3 wickets. Followed by a 70 against Westindies and later he performed well while touring England post 2007 world cup. He went on to hit a scoop of Stuart Broad and played a walking shot which earned him the name 'walking assassin' on the course of chasing 317 at The Oval. After that, his decline at the international level started as he became a complete failure in the CB series 2008 and the Asia cup that year.
Read Also: Ranji Trophy 2022: Ajinkya Rahane to play under Prithvi Shaw in Mumbai team, says I have no issues
After performing hugely in domestic maintaining 51+ batting average from 2011-14 and IPL and getting the orange cap in 2014, he was again called back in the side. He scored a fine half-century on his comeback against Bangladesh. Although, after that, he never scored more than 40 in any of the 7 innings he played.
Considering all sorts of failure at International Level and Success at the domestic level he could've been given a go in the squad. In addition, the presence of someone like Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli in top order and MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh in the middle never helped him too much to get a cemented place in the final eleven.
#2 Ambati Rayudu
It was a fine afternoon of 15 April of 2019 when the Indian Squad for the twelfth world cup at England. The only anomaly which arose was Vijay Shankar was selected ahead of Ambati Thirupati Rayudu in the squad as the selectors wanted a 3D prospect. When he was given chances regularly from 2018 to February 2019, he scored 639 runs at an average of 42.60 and was team's fourth-highest run-getter in that period. Still, it was really a disappointment for him not to get a place in the first fifteen. Furthermore, later when Shikhar Dhawan was injured he was not called even then.
Read Also: Hardik Pandya to skip Ranji trophy wants to focus on white-ball cricket
Ambati Rayudu has been one of the prolific performers in domestic cricket since the start of his career in 2001-02 both in the red ball and White ball. Specially in white-ball, he has maintained an average of 50 in many of the seasons after his century against Goa way back in 2002. He did well touring England in 2003 for A team and scored a magnificent century followed by a half-century in red-ball format and scored a half-century in white-ball format. However, he slipped from the mainstream of Indian Cricket after joining the rebel ICL tournament. After coming back in 2009, Rayudu made some valuable runs in every season till 2013 when he got the opportunity to wear the Indian blue jersey.
He then performed well to get a call up in the 2015 ODI world cup squad but didn't get a game, unfortunately. And inspite of performing heavily he was ignored from the 2019 world cup squad and he decided to retire from international cricket.
In the case of Ambati Rayudu, the selection committee was really unfair by a fair margin.
#3 Parthiv Patel
Although the wicket-keeper from Gujarat has played 31 test matches in the Indian jersey, he deserved more matches to play. During his early days, Parthiv was brilliant behind the stumps as well as with the bat in age group levels. And this earned him the 244th test cap of India at Nottingham against England.
With the bat, he scored a match-saving 19 in the second innings of his debut Test. After that, he became a regular member of the Indian test side till 2004 and in that period he had maintained close to 32 batting average with 4 half-centuries in the 19 test matches he played. Afterwards, he got an opportunity to break in the final eleven after 4 years in 2008 against Colombo and was left out of the team again.
Read Also: Arjun Tendulkar named in Mumbai's Ranji Trophy squad, Prithvi Shaw to lead
After scoring vigorously in domestic cricket he got the opportunity again in the Indian side in England tour and scored 195 runs in 4 innings which seemed to be pretty good. And later failure in South Africa in 2018 ensured that Parthiv's career in the Indian jersey was over.
In that time, he helped Gujarat to win Ranji Trophy after captaining the side in 2017 and scored 1110 runs at a whopping 50.45 average! However, the presence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Wriddhiman Saha as glovesmen shattered Parthiv's career.
#4 Manoj Tiwary
It is very common to see the ex-Bengal captain to see in this list. Starting from the age-group level Manoj Tiwary maintained 52 average in Coachbehar Trophy, 52.33 average in MA Chidambaram Trophy and earned man of the match award in his U-19 test debut against England.
Then in Ranji trophy, he had achieved the record of scoring 500 and above runs in every season from 2006-07 to 2019-20 with amazing consistency and did well in tour matches in Australia in 2014. However, he got still ignored for the National side which you can call a shame.
Read Also: "I had planned to play 200 balls", U19 cricketer Abishek Porel shares his success-mantra
He is famous for being dropped in the International side after scoring a sensational century against West Indies at Chennai. Afterwards, he scored 65 and took 4 wickets against Srilanka in 2012 and was a part of 2012 T20 World Cup but didn't get a single game. After that, a string of low scores against Zimbabwe in 2015 closed the door of National Side for Tiwary. Tiwary could have been a long stay in the Indian middle-order unless he was one of the unluckiest Indian cricketers.
287 runs from 12 ODI innings at 26.09 average marked the end of a valiant junior batsman who once stepped out against Zaheer Khan in Ranji final to go for a lofted shot.
#5 Subramaniam Badrinath
Hailing from Tamilnadu, Badrinath was a prolific run-getter since his debut. He played first-class matches for three state teams namely Tamilnadu, Vidarbha and Hyderabad. For Tamilnadu, he has a 56.99 first-class batting average which is pretty good if one looks at the Indian first-class structure. Also, Badrinath has a batting average of 213 for the India A team in the 9 innings he had represented.
Read Also: Indian Cricket News: Fans slams selectors as "biggest clowns" for "ruining careers"
From 2005-06 Badrinath proved to be a stalwart of the domestic circuit. Badrinath averaged 124.61 throughout 7 consecutive seasons. That led him to his international debut against South Africa in Nagpur in June 2010. On his debut, he scored a fine half-century but failed in the other two innings.
He is one of those Indian cricketers who have won the man of the match in their T20 debut. Later Badrinath failed to break into the National team due to the presence of Virat Kohli and many others.
#6 Laxmi Ratan Shukla
A hard-hitting batsman and a handy bowler, Laxmi Ratan Shukla would've been one of the mainstays of the Indian Cricket team during the decade of the 2000s. Even after that decade, India tried a lot of all-rounders who were skillfully inferior to Shukla. Therefore, he remains as one of the unluckiest Indian cricketers who could have been successful in a different era.
Shukla was a prominent hard hitter who was ready to bat at any position. He first rose to the selector's attention when he scored a blistering 136 against Delhi in the Wills Trophy semifinal back in 1999 against the likes of Ashish Nehra, Amit Bhandari and Rahul Sanghvi. He also played a tennis shot against Debashis Mohanty who was then an Indian side player in the Orissa match.
After playing just 8 List A matches Shukla was given his ODI cap. However, he failed to create any impression on his debut. He was tonked by Lankan batsmen in his debut and in his final ODI he got his only International wicket in the form of James Adams and registered his highest score of 13.
In the Srilanka test in the year 1999, Shukla had a chance to make his debut but management had other plans as Ashish Nehra was handed the cap ahead of him. Even after scoring 6217 runs and taking 172 wickets at first-class level and 2997 runs and 143 wickets at List A level, he was ignored and his dream of representing India got doomed at an age of just 18.
#7 Jalaj Saxena
Jalaj Saxena has been a very effective allrounder and also a silent performer. He has represented Madhyapradesh and Kerala state team where he batted at every position from opening to 7 or 8.
A good allrounder with a 35 batting average and 27 List A bowling average could've been a good inclusion to the side and also could've been a replacement of someone like Ravichandran Ashwin. Although he was ignored inspite of consistent performances which makes him one of the unluckiest Indian cricketers form the domestic circuit.
#8 Vinay Kumar
Ranganath Vinay Kumar with 504 wickets besides his name is one of the strong contenders on this list of unluckiest Indian cricketers. He played almost 15 seasons in KSCA jersey and one in Puducherry jersey.
As a highly skilful bowler, he took 50 wickets twice in the Ranji trophy and 47 wickets once. He along with Abhimanyu Mithun and Sreenath Arvind constituted the most formidable bowling attack in the Indian domestic circuit. After this fine performance, he was given a chance to make his Test debut against Australia at Perth in 2011-12 where he failed miserably after taking the wicket of Michael Hussey.
The Wicket of Michael Hussey remained his only test wicket as he never got a chance to play again in Indian Jersey. Later Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah came afterwards and cemented the spot in the team.
#9 Ashok Dinda
Furious fast bowler Ashok Dinda rose to fame when he performed blisteringly for the Bengal side from 2006-07 and was close to getting his test cap at the 2012 Nagpur test against England. However, due to a turning track, team management decided to play four spinners with one pacer Ishant Sharma.
Ashok Dinda took 59 wickets that season at an bowling average of 19 which forced the selectors to think about him. He bowled well in list A and T20 levels too. His speed amd accuracy made batters look uncomfortable. Once he was called as best of death bowlers in India in T20 levels but ended up being expensive at the last few years of his career. But it doesn't nullify the fact that he should've been more capped and should have played 20 tests. He is considered as one of the unluckiest Indian cricketers not to have donned the white jersey for India.
#10 Priyank Panchal
The Gujarat lad has maintained a 45.52 batting average in first class level and has a triple hundred against Punjab comprising of pacers like Manpreet Gony, Sandeep Sharma, Siddharth Kaul. He scored 1449 runs at 80 average in the 2016-17 season and also played with an average of 61.06 in the next two season which got him his first India A team call up in Westindies in 2019. For India A team Panchal got three tours and 14 matches where he scored 1089 runs at 51.85 batting average with 4 centuries including a double hundred.
After that, he got his maiden National side callup in the South Africa tour of India in 2021-22 but in the presence of KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal, he didn't get a single game. Currently, as he is 31 now, it is tough for him to play much tests in coming years.
