Eden Gardens, October 1, 2016: Wriddhiman Saha scores an unbeaten 54 against New Zealand at a time when his team was under pressure.
Nagpur, 2010: Saha's stumps are tumbled by a South African bowling legend called Dale Steyn in his debut innings and eyebrows are raised. Yes, the Siliguri guy is lucky to have earned his Test cap because Rohit Sharma is injured. And mind you, Saha doesn't even keep wickets on his debut because the prestigious place behind the stumps is occupied by the Indian captain MS Dhoni. In the second innings of the Test, Saha stands his ground scoring a fighting 36 off 101 balls giving ample support to his skipper, Dhoni.
In the presence of Dhoni, Saha had to prolong his wait to make his entry into the Indian team. Despite his heroics with the bat in the shorter versions of the game (IPL final in 2014 among many), he was never taken seriously at the international level. Despite experts showering praises on him and his skills behind the stumps, Saha had to cool his heels on the sidelines. An out-of-the-blue retirement of Dhoni from the five-day-format in Australia in 2014, and the selection committee didn't have to look beyond the Bengal wicket-keeper to replace a legend. Even when Dhoni was at his peak, many experts felt that the best wicket-keeper in India was Saha and not the legend.
Since then, Saha has not only earned the confidence of his skipper Virat Kohli, he has also given us reasons enough to repose our faith in him not just as a wicket-keeper, but also as a batsman down the order who can be looked to under crisis. The world of cricket has seen legendary figures excelling behind the stumps as well as with the bat: Syed Kirmani, Alan Knott, Wasim Bari, Rodney Marsh, Bob Taylor, Kumar Sangakkara, Moin Khan, MS Dhoni, Adam Gilchrist, to name a few. These guys were not only dependable as wicket-keepers but also contributed with the willow as well. And going by Saha's career graph so far, it is a given that he is slowly and steadily embarking on a successful journey as a cricketer.
His 60 against Sri Lanka at Galle (2015), 56 against Sri Lanka at Colombo (2015), 104 against West Indies at Gros Islet (2016) and the unbeaten 54 against New Zealand on his home ground, Kolkata only bear testimony to the fact that here's a wicket-keeper who means business with the bat as well.
Before the emergence of Dhoni, if India had one stable pair of hands behind the stumps and a dependable batsman in the middle-order in both Tests and ODIs, post the Kiran More era, it was Nayan Mongia. In between, India has experimented with wicket-keepers like Syed Saba Karim, Vijay Yadav, Samir Dighe, Deep Dasgupta (also from Bengal), Vijay Dahiya, Parthiv Patel, Dinesh Karthik, MSK Prasad and probably some others (names not worth remembering), but none could cement his place be it in any format of the game. Even Rahul Dravid was entrusted with the responsibility of handling business behind the stumps in ODIs. But the guy from Ranchi changed it all and ruled Indian cricket as a Test cricketer till 2014 and continues to make an impact in the One-day Internationals and T20s.
But Saha courtesy Dhoni's retirement from Tests, has had a chance to prove his worth as a reliable wicket-keeper-batsman. And he hasn't let this opportunity go wasted. With an impressive record both as a wicket-keeper and a batsman, the cool and sober guy from Bengal can actually aim at replacing Dhoni in the truncated versions of the game as well once the latter calls it a day. And there's hardly any competition apart from Naman Ojha. Even in the modified versions, Saha is not to be ignored keeping in mind his deceptive aggression as a batsman that can take any world-class bowler by surprise.
Though it's too early to say that Dhoni isn't missed in Test matches, what we can harp on is that Saha is here to stay and despite being 31, he at least has five-six years of cricket left in him. Dedication and commitment personify him and let's put our money on him.
As a Bengali this writer may sound biased, but this piece is from an earnest observer of the game and not a proud Bengali.
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