Dear Stuart Binny haters, please check his numbers first!

In the first T20I in USA, where India fell short of achieving a record T20 chase by a solitary run, there was one particular over that caught everyone’s attention. It was the 11^th over of the WI innings, bowled by Stuart Binny that went for 32 runs. A repeat of the Yuvraj Singh 6 sixes act was well on the cards, but Evin Lewis couldn’t hit the over’s last ball for a six, despite it being a knee-high full toss! A lucky escape for Stuart, one might say.

Lucky – It’s a word many people who’ve never really been in favor of seeing him in the Indian team would want to associate with Stuart Binny. People troll him, and sadly, even his wife, on social media, every time he fails to perform really well. They even go to the extent of saying that his presence in the team is largely due to his father being a national selector, which is ridiculous. And now, this 32 run over has led many to say that this performance might finally bring down curtains on his international career.

But wait…

Has anyone bothered to look at his stats in any detail before jumping to such a conclusion? Has anyone tried checking if he has ACTUALLY performed so poorly at the international level so far that he deserves to be dropped for good?

If people say yes, he should be dropped, one detailed look at his numbers at the ODI level might be enough for them to change their minds!

Let’s see his one-day stats in a little more detail than they have been in general:

He has played 14 ODIs for India in his career till now. Now, that in itself would tell one that it’s too small a sample size to judge a player who’s seen as a solution for the ever-present problem of not having a quality seam bowling all-rounder; ever since Irfan Pathan lost favour!

I decided to analyze his performance in these 14 ODIs he’s played, and came up with the table you see here:

Match No.	Opposition	Runs (Balls)	Overs	Runs Given	Wickets	Result (Ind)
1	New Zealand	DNB	1	8	0	Lost
2	Sri Lanka	0 (4)	4	22	0	Lost
3	Bangladesh	3 (8)	4.4	4	6	Won
4	Bangladesh	25 (36)*	0	0	0	NR
5	Sri Lanka	DNB	8	55	2	Won
6	Sri Lanka	12 (15)	8	28	1	Won
7	England	44 (55)	7	34	1	Lost
8	Australia	DNB	0	0	0	NR
9	England	7 (12)	8	33	3	Lost
10	Bangladesh	17 (11)*	6	41	1	Won
11	Zimbabwe	77 (76)	10	54	2	Won
12	Zimbabwe	25 (16)	7	42	1	Won
13	Zimbabwe	18 (8)	10	55	3	Won
14	South Africa	2 (5)	8	63	0	Lost

His overall one day stats read:

Batting:

Matches	Innings	Runs	Highest	Average	Strike Rate
14	11	230	77	28.75	93.49

Bowling:

Matches	Innings	Wickets	Economy	Average	Strike Rate
14	12	20	5.37	21.95	24.5

He made his debut in ODIs in January 2014, which tells us that he has played just 14 games in over two and a half years, a duration in which the Indian team has played a total of 52 ODIs; this means he’s played almost just one-fourth of all matches India has played.

On his ODI debut, he did not get a chance to bat and bowled just one over, which means he hardly got an opportunity to show his potential at all.

His 2^nd game gave him his first chance with the bat, where he failed, but again, got to bowl just 4 overs out of a maximum 10.

Then came that epic game against Bangladesh, where he had the scarcely believable figures of 6 wickets for just 4 runs off 4.4 overs, which helped India defend a total of just over a hundred, and saved them from the embarrassment of a loss to Bangladesh.

These, incidentally, are the best bowling figures by an Indian bowler ever in ODIs, eclipsing Anil Kumble’s 6 for 12 in the Hero Cup in the early 90s; record that stood for over 20 years!

Now, just ask yourselves, doesn’t a bowler, who made this above mentioned record in just his 3^rd ODI, deserve a chance to cement his place in the XI by getting quite a few more consistent opportunities in the one day team?

Does it sound justified that a bowler who made such a record has played just 11 more matches in almost 2.5 years after this performance, when he could have potentially played close to 50?

I’d like to believe that this ONE performance should buy a player many more games just as a bowler alone, for any team; add to that the fact that he’s a more than handy batsman at 6 or 7 in the line-up, and you have a phenomenal package!

After this match, he remained 25 not out in the next rain-marred match where again the Indian team was struggling with the bat and he held one end together, before rain arrived.

Since then, in the next 10 matches he played, he’s actually really “failed” with the bat in only 3 matches, as you can see from the table above. It’s match nos. 6, 9 and 14 where he didn’t score much; in all other matches he either scored well or scored much quicker than a run-a-ball as he came in late in the innings when India were batting first.

In 2 of these 3 matches where he failed with the bat, he had spells of 1 for 28 in 8 overs, and 3 for 33 in 8 overs; in the 2^nd match his spell had England wobbling at 66/5 chasing 200, before a stand between James Taylor and Jos Buttler steadied them.

This tells us that even when he completely failed with the bat, he performed admirably with the ball, which is what an all-rounder is meant to do; You fail in one department, you make up for it in the other!

In match no.7 where we lost to England, he top scored with 44 when the team was all out for just 150 off, and then took the only wicket to fall as India lost by 9 wickets.

In match no. 11, India were struggling at 80 something for 5, when he joined Kedar Jadhav in a partnership that took India to a big score, and then took 2 wickets to help clinch a win.

His only real “poor” performance came in match no. 14, where he scored 2 off 5 balls and gave 63 off his 8 overs, but even in that game, it was one really bad over where AB de Villiers tore into him and took more than 20 off, and with the bat, he’d come in at the very end where he had to just swing the bat as India were looking to chase a stiff target.

Overall, the table tells us that he has performed adequately, and at times, outstandingly, in at least 8 of the 14 matches he has played. Doesn’t this show enough promise for the team management to persist with a player?

Just 14 matches so far even after seeing the way he has performed in them, tells us that he’s perhaps judged match by match, wherein one bad performance means you don’t deserve to play the next one!

This is hardly the right way to judge a player anyway, and when we compare this to the kind of long rope of faith from the captain and the selectors that players like Rohit, Raina and Jadeja have received, this doesn’t look justified at all.

I’m not advocating his numbers in the test arena, for they’re not overwhelming, at least as of now, but that he remains a valuable asset, if used properly and put faith in, in the one day, and even the T20 format, should never be in doubt.

Not too sure if people have ever tried looking at his stats in this way before, for if they had, I’m sure they wouldn’t have been trolling him the way they do on social media, and would have offered lots of support instead!