CM Gautam – If not now, then when?

Like every year since its inception, the Ranji Trophy yet again showcased the best of cricketing talent the country has to offer. Every player goes into the season hoping to make it their own, but only a select few do so. 2012-13 saw one man standing out like none other – Karnataka’s CM Gautam.

CM Gautam – Knocking on the doors (image credit: toptenstore.blogspot.com)

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. And Muralidharen Gautam has let his bat do all the talking this season. 943 runs in 14 games, at a jaw dropping average of 117.87, would surely do his reputation no harm. For a wicketkeeper, those are outstanding numbers; numbers good enough to prove that Gautam is capable of holding his place in the team purely as a batsman. And the ability to do that – to seal a spot in the team as a pure batsman – is arguably the secret objective lurking in the back of the minds of most keepers, however hard they try to convince the world into believing that “Keeping is my top priority; I am a keeper first and a batsman later”.

CM Gautam may have ended up as the third highest run getter this season, but what’s more heartening than the number of runs he scored, is the manner in which he scored them. His innings against Tamil Nadu was the best endorsement of his temperament and quality. Walking in at 289 for 5, needing a further 250 runs to avoid conceding the first innings lead, Gautam scored the best 130 runs of his life to save Karnataka the blushes in the sweltering heat of Chennai.

An injury to Manish Pandey forced the Karnataka think-tank to push Gautam up the order, all the way up to No. 4. And the Bangalore lad ensured that that was a move they did not end up regretting. Not too many things are more encouraging than seeing a young batsman seizing the opportunity of coming in to bat at two drop. A 257 in Mysore against Vidarbha and a 264 not out in a knockout game against Maharashtra at Pune speaks volumes about his concentration levels and his ability to bat in pressure cooker situations.

Gautam’s overall First Class record boasts of a batting average of 51.32 after 41 matches, significantly greater than that of his greatest competitor – Wriddhiman Saha, who averages 43.38 in 54 matches. Dinesh Karthik and Parthiv Patel are almost always in the fray. Karthik averages 64 this season, and Parthiv averages 68. However, they’ve had their fair share of opportunities with the Indian Team, and haven’t done enough to cement their spots. Also, Gautam has the added advantage of being a couple of years younger than his contemporaries.

Clearly, Gautam has given the cricketing world enough evidence that he is a keeper-batsman of great calibre. This season, he has forced the few remaining followers of domestic cricket to sit up and take notice. And one can say with a fair degree of certainty that he is at his peak right now. Now, it all boils down to the one question of prime importance – will the National Selectors back Gautam?

After all, almost all players who have gone on to play for the country for a significant period of time were picked when they were at their prime, when everything they touched turned to gold; when they had the highest confidence in their own abilities; when they had the backing of their most successful domestic season behind them; when they knew that at the point of their selection, there was no better player who could have been there instead.

Dinesh Karthik – A Ranji Trophy giant, but a disappointment in International Cricket.

As part of the national team, Syed Kirmani’s first assignment was the 1971 tour of England. And till 1975, he set foot on pretty much every foreign nation India toured. However, he played his first Test only in 1976. That is after five whole years of living in Farokh Engineer’s shadow; after five whole years of experiencing playing conditions all around the world; after five whole years of playing close to every practice game and every warm up game the tour had to offer. The experience he gathered as Engineer’s understudy was indisputably advantageous. For the next ten years, he kept and batted with style and panache, and gave the Indian fan a certain sense of reliability. Kirmani’s glittering career came to a close in 1986.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a tired man. Playing every match in every format cannot be easy, and unfortunately, it shows. Dhoni’s Test batting has unquestionably suffered, and it’s high time the selectors start thinking about Test Cricket beyond the Dhoni era.

So if not anything, CM Gautam would be a perfect stand-by for Dhoni; a perfect understudy. Dhoni doesn’t look like he has too much Test Cricket left in him and, by his own admission, is looking to quit the format towards the end of 2013. Gautam must be fancying his chances, regardless of the fact that over the last couple of years, the selection of the spare keeper-batsman seems to be based more on Inky-Pinky-Ponky with Saha, Parthiv, and Karthik, rather than solid, rational decisions based on statistics.

Indian cricket has had a disappointingly large number of “nearly men” in the last decade – Subramaniam Badrinath, Amol Majumdar, Shishanshu Kotak and Sairaj Bahatule to name a few. The last thing Indian Cricket needs is an addition to that list. Indian Cricket certainly does not need yet another talent being wasted due to the lack of the right opportunities at the right times. And as always, it’s completely up to the five wise men.