Raina's India Comeback Not As Easy As It Seems

He has been the cynosure of all eyes ever since his savage assault on Kings XI Punjab yielded him 87 runs off just 25 balls. And although Chennai Super Kings lost the second Qualifier, Suresh Raina gave a timely reminder of exactly what he is capable of. Come June 15, Raina will yet again be keen to prove that his consistency is not just confined to the Indian Premier League and that he still remains one of India's best bets in the middle order.

With an international cricket career spanning almost eight years, Raina has been through several peaks and valleys. However, his biggest setback came when he was dropped from India's ODI set-up just before the Asia Cup in March following a string of below-par performances in the previous nine months. He managed just one half-century (that too against a poor Zimbabwe side) in his previous 20-odd ODI innings for an average under 26. His last four series have fetched him just 291 runs from 15 innings against Australia, West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand with the short ball repeatedly doing him in.

In his absence, India struggled in the Asia Cup, winning only against Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Raina's exploits in the World Twenty20 a month later in Bangladesh saw him batting in a entirely different zone. He used the warm-up games to get back into the feel of things with an unbeaten 54 against England and carried it into the Super 10s with 63 runs in four innings. Then came the IPL, where the Uttar Pradesh batsman once again went past 400 runs to earn himself a ticket to Bangladesh, where he gets to captain the side in the absence of MS Dhoni.

Now that Raina is back in the squad, he has a stiff task at hand. Moreover, the absence of Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami means he is the senior-most player in the side who has his own captaincy record standing against him. Raina has led in nine ODIs previously, out of which India have lost five - two of which came against Zimbabwe in a tri-series including Sri Lanka in 2010. Back then too, Raina was handed a relatively lesser experienced side.

If one is to examine Raina's graph, his batting has taken a hit during captaincy. In his first series against West Indies in 2011, he averaged a shade over 20 and in the tri-series it was 27.66. He is yet to register a half-century in nine innings with a best of 43 and this is a perfect platform for the 27-year-old to prove his mettle as a leader. A lot will depend on how and where he bats. With an inexperienced line-up in picture, India would want its batting to revolve around him in order to provide resilience and if required, finish the game off for the side.

One thing that is sure to help Raina is the fact that he is coming off another sublime IPL season. He had 523 runs from 16 games at 40.23 with five fifties, becoming the only batsman to score in excess of 400 runs in every edition of the tournament. India can also take heart from the fact that his pep talk with former India captain Sourav Ganguly has helped him deal with chest-high deliveries better. Raina looked fairly at ease in the World T20 and the IPL.

The equation in Bangladesh might sound more simple than it actually is. And in such circumstances, where Bangladesh will look forward to pulling off their biggest ever series win against the current ODI world champions, Raina's role becomes all the more crucial. His biggest challenge will be to decide the batting order which is relatively weakened with the exclusions of big names. Cheteshwar Pujara has played two ODIs in Zimbabwe - one was a fourth-ball duck and the other was an awkward 24-ball 13. With Ajinkya Rahane and Robin Uthappa likely to open the innings, Raina would fancy batting Pujara at No.3 with the rest to follow.

Rahane has 687 runs from 27 games, Uthappa 786 from 38, Ambati Rayadu 243 from 10 and the recalled Manoj Tiwary 251 from eight games. Apart from this, Wriddhiman Saha and Stuart Binny have batted just once for India in ODIs and Kedar Jadhav and Parvez Rasool haven't played yet. All this is far from an ideal scenario for Raina to mark his comeback into the 50-over fray. His bowling unit looks fragile too hence, a lot would be expected of Mohit Sharma (23 wickets from 16 games) and Umesh Yadav (11 wickets in 12 matches) based on successful IPL 7 stints. Amit Mishra too needs to come good and repeat his World T20 heroics.

The task as hand is not as easy as it seems for the free-flowing left-handed batsman. A tour of England is around the corner and a good outing against Bangladesh could do Raina's confidence a world of good. Based on current form, Raina's place in the side seems safe at the moment but with the World Cup 2015 being the big picture, he surely is aware of the many capped and uncapped players that are waiting in the wings.