4 Indian cricketers who were one-series wonders

Cricket is religion in India and cricketers who are able to make it to the national team, are treated as demigods here. They enjoy wide popularity and fanfare in the country and become cult heroes in the country. However, it is more difficult to sustain one’s position in international cricket than merely breaking into the team. Not every cricketer is able to withstand the pressure and expectation of being an international cricketer and many fade away after a brief stint at the highest level.

There have been some Indian cricketers who have played very well in one series for the national team, but faded away from the international scene soon after that. We would like to take a look at 4 such cricketers:

#1 Sadanand Vishwanath

Vishwanath has immortalized himself as a member of the Indian team that won the Mini World Cup in 1985 in Australia. Many cricket lovers have a lasting memory of Vishwanath donning the big gloves and standing behind the wicket to effect some stunning stumping dismissals off the bowling of spinners Ravi Shastri and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. He was also dependable while keeping to the swing bowling of Kapil Dev and Roger Binny.

Moreover, Vishwanath was a very dependable batsman in the lower-middle order too. He made some very useful runs in that tournament as well. Vishwanath finished that tournament with 9 catches and 3 stumpings. With his broad shoulders and wrists and athleticism, Vishwanath promised to become the next great Indian wicketkeeper after Syed Kirmani.

However, as luck would have it, Vishwanath’s meteoric rise was short-lived and he soon found himself out of the Indian team. We would not delve deep in this article to find the reasons for the same, but India definitely lost out on a potentially great wicketkeeper-batsman. Players like Chandrakant Pandit and Kiran More took over soon after that and Vishwanath remained a one-series wonder only. In all, he played 22 ODIs and 3 tests for India, making 31 and 72 runs respectively. He also effected 35 dismissals in international cricket.

#2 Vijay Bharadwaj

Vijay Bharadwaj

Most of the Indian cricket lovers remember Bharadwaj as the man who shone in the LG Cup in Nairobi featuring India, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya in 1999. He took 10 wickets and scored 89 runs in that tournament and was adjudged the Man of the Series. However, his fame too, was short-lived as he struggled to cement his place in the side and found himself out of favor with the national selectors soon after that.

Bharadwaj was a bowling all-rounder, who bowled off-spin and batted in the lower middle order. His bowling was considerably tidy and batting was suited to limited-overs cricket. He also remains one of the few bespectacled cricketers to have played at the international level. He played a Test series at home against the visiting New Zealand team, but failed to impress and was dropped soon after that.

Bharadwaj missed out on a promising international career and India too, missed out on a genuine all-rounder. Bharadwaj played in 3 Tests and 10 ODIs for India, scored 28 and 136 runs and took 1 and 16 wickets respectively.

#3 Subroto Banerjee

Subroto Banerjee

Banerjee was a very promising fast bowler who made it into the Indian team in the 1992 World Cup. He was included in the Indian squad that toured Australia in 1991-92 and played a solitary test and few ODIs in the Benson Hedges World Series. He also took 3 wickets against Australia in Australia in the only test he played in his career. He then played against England in the inaugural match of the World Cup and took 3/30.

His swing and pace could have very effective in Australia and New Zealand, but he was not given much of a chance in that tournament. India bowed out of the tournament meekly after failing to make it to the last 4. Banerjee was a useful lower-order batsman too and made 49 runs in the 6 ODIs he played.

Banerjee could have been an ideal addition to the Indian line-up during the early 1990s as both Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar were ageing and Javagal Srinath was emerging as a pace bowler. However, Srinath went on to have a long international career, but Banerjee, inexplicably, was dropped and never made it again to the Indian team. He settled in Australia after retiring from cricket and remains one of the many Indian cricketers with unfulfilled promise at the international level. He took 135 wickets in first-class cricket with an average of 29.83.

#4 Vivek Razdan

Vivek Razdan

Yet another Indian fast bowler to miss out on a long international career, Razdan was even unluckier as he did not even get to play in a whole series. Rather, he played 2 Test matches against Pakistan in Pakistan in the 1989-90 series and took 5 wickets in the only innings he bowled in.

Still, inexplicably, he did not play in any Test match after that. He played in 3 ODIs too and took one wicket. Razdan was a very decent seam-bowling option that India chose not to have. He could also have been an ideal ally for the likes of Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad in the 1990s.

The 1989-90 series between the two arch-rivals was more memorable because of non-cricketing reasons than cricketing ones as some dull and drab test cricket was being played on placid tracks. However, Razdan spit fire in the Faisalabad Test to take 5 Pakistani wickets and drew praise from opposition captain Imran Khan too. However, he had to stick to playing domestic cricket after that and never got a chance to represent India again. He took 67 first-class wickets at an average of 33.79.