Indian cricketer in focus: Stuart Binny – turning the tables around

Stuart Binny

Being the son of a celebrity can never be easy, especially a celebrity cricketer. The weight of a billion expectations hangs over your shoulders, and the eyes of a billion people are perpetually on you.

Every one of your moves is under constant scrutiny, and each one of your decisions is carefully dissected under a microscope. Your life is never completely your own – it almost always is strangled by the steely unwavering grip of your surname.

Stuart Binny though, was spared all that. Seldom was his name printed in bold following any half-decent performance, and seldom did his omission from teams or squads create any sort of uproar.

Despite being a fairly successful Test cricketer in his own right, and being the highest wicket-taker in India’s victorious 1983 World Cup campaign, Stuart’s father Roger Binny had managed to stay away from the limelight for the most part of his career. And therefore, Stuart too, was never treated like a goldfish in a bowl, and never had the world gawking at him, oohing and aahing as he took his first steps onto the cricket field.

Thrust into the Karnataka Ranji Trophy team at the tender age of nineteen, Stuart Binny did not have an auspicious beginning – a duck in his first innings certainly did not augur well. Although he was in the team as an all-rounder, he was not trusted with the ball for a better part of the season.

His performances were not inspiring and coincided with a poor phase for Karnataka cricket. His complete failure to produce the goods meant that there was always a question mark regarding his place in the team, and being under such constant pressure meant that he could not perform to his potential. It was a vicious cycle.

With every passing season, his batting average dipped and his bowling average deteriorated. Inevitably, the tongues began to wag. He’s in the team only because he is Roger Binny’s son, they said. He’s wasting a spot in the squad, they said. He has no determination and lacks the willingness to put in the hard yards, they said. And eventually, following exceptionally unproductive seasons in 2003/04 and 2004/05, Stuart found himself left out of the Karnataka team with alarming regularity.

Out in the wilderness, away from the cosy comfort that the Karnataka dressing room provided, Stuart headed back to where he started his journey – the Bangalore United Cricket Club. He played a few good innings for the first division team at BUCC, but his consistency remained questionable. His deceptive off cutters did rattle a few stumps, but there were no performances good enough to demand attention.

2006 passed by uneventfully, but in 2007, when the rebel Indian Cricket League came calling, Stuart decided to give it a shot. After all, his career was going nowhere under the jurisdiction of the BCCI, he reasoned. There are a very few people who can say that joining the ICL was the best decision of their life. Stuart Binny, however, is certainly one of them.

Representing the Hyderabad Heroes, he effortlessly and consistently outshone his other teammates, gradually regaining all his lost confidence in the process. He scored 804 runs in 35 innings at an average of 25.93, and contributed with the ball by taking 17 wickets.

Possessing a newfound belief in his own abilities, Stuart Binny accepted the BCCI’s amnesty offer in 2009, hoping to crawl his way back into the Karnataka scheme of things. Luckily for him, the selectors were benevolent enough to give him a second chance, and Binny ensured that they didn’t regret it.

In 2010/11, he made 428 runs at an average of 47.55. In 2011/12, Binny enchanted the few remaining followers of domestic cricket with his sparkling stroke-play, towering his way to 798 runs at a tremendous average of 66.50. Also, he scalped twenty five wickets at 19.48 runs-a-piece, and his outstanding overall contribution guaranteed that he would go on to be honoured with BCCI’s Lala Amarnath Award for the best all-rounder in the Ranji Trophy that season.

Binny’s good run of form continued into the 2012/13 season, and when a hamstring injury ruled Karnataka skipper Vinay Kumar out, it came as no surprise that Binny was handed over the mantle of captaincy. He had finally managed to convince the cricketing world that he was here for good. With the tiny check box of making all his Ranji Trophy critics eat humble pie now ticked, he moved on to showcase his talent on a bigger platform in the Indian Premier League.

Handpicked by Rahul Dravid as a promising youngster in IPL 4, Binny didn’t get too many games with the Rajasthan Royals in 2011 or 2012. But come 2013, Stuart played like a man possessed. Seizing every opportunity he was given, Binny played a massive hand in the success of a team that continually punched above its weight.

Stuart Binny impressed for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 6

Clearly, a lot has changed since that disastrous debut season in 2003. Gone is the blind arrogance in his stance, gone are those loose wafts outside off stump and gone are those careless, airborne flicks off his legs. Somewhere along the way, Stuart Binny has managed to transform his reputation of an immature, unreliable, bits-and-pieces player to a solid yet powerful batsman more than handy with his medium pacers.

Binny’s selection in the India-A squad scheduled to tour South Africa later this month is easily the biggest break of his career. However, going by the sheer weight of his performances, it was just a mere formality. In this free-wheeling interview with Sportskeeda, Binny talks about how he managed to turn the tables on a career that was once spiralling downhill at the rate of knots.

He may not have the natural talent of a Sachin Tendulkar. He may not have the unbreakable technique and water-tight defence of a Rahul Dravid. He may not have overwhelming, dominating, flamboyance of a MS Dhoni. What Stuart Binny does have though, is a little bit of everything. And truck loads of grit and determination.