Five Indian Cricketers Who Didn't Do Justice To Their Talent

Five Indian Cricketers Who Didn’t Do Justice To Their Talent;  Cricket is one of the most-followed sports in the world and has become a part of millions of people’s lives. It has seen many cricketers achieving greatness with their cricketing skills. While many players have risen to fame through their consistency, there are few who could not maintain the consistency in their performances.

Many of these players had promising starts to their career and some of them were even endorsed as the ones who hold the future of Indian cricket.

However, after some below-par performances, they were dropped and could not make a comeback into the national side.

Here, in this piece, we bring you five cricketers, who failed to do justice to their talent.

Five Indian Cricketers Who Didn’t Do Justice To Their Talent:

5. Robin Uthappa:

The flamboyant batsman from Karnataka is one of the great talents of India. Robin Uthappa surprised one and all with his incredible batting skills in the initial stages of his career but soon, he faded out with a dip in his form.

Uthappa had a dream debut as he scored a well compiled 86, opening the innings at Indore. He was given a decent run since then and was also part of the 50-over World Cup squad in 2007.

The action shifted to South Africa for the inaugural edition of the World T20 in the same year and Uthappa had a good beginning before fading away.

However, he played all the matches in the tournament, which was won by India.

Well, his form dipped after the Asia Cup in 2008 and with the emergence of Virat Kohli, Uthappa was overlooked by the selectors. He served various teams in IPL and also a consistent performer in domestic circuit but he failed to do justice to his talent on the international stage.

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4. Subramaniam Badrinath:

When Subramaniam Badrinath appeared for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), he was the star for the fans and used to catch the headlines more often than not. The flamboyant batsman made waves with his batting in IPL and followed it up exceptionally with performances in domestic cricket.

He came into the national reckoning in 2007 when he accumulated runs for India A on their tours to Zimbabwe and Kenya. He then made a 200 against the visiting South African A side, after which the selectors picked him for the first three ODIs against Australia, though he did not get a game.

Badrinath continued to make runs in the domestic scene. He made 659 runs at 65.90 in 2007-08 season and kept knocking on the doors of the Indian side.

Finally, he got his chance to make his ODI debut when India toured Sri Lanka in 2008.

Though he did fairly enough, selectors dropped him from ODI side and picked for Tests. With giant middle-order, he hardly got a chance to break into playing XI.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t sustain in the team for his poor show, which eventually ended his international career.

3. Vinod Kambli:

Though Vinod Kambli is majorly known for his rift with Sachin Tendulkar, he is one of the genius cricketers India has ever had. Both Sachin and Kambli were destined to reach lofty heights in their respective careers given the immense potential they had with the willow.

Unfortunately, Kambli didn’t use his golden start to his success.

Kambli made an emphatic entry into Test cricket in 1993 scoring a double ton against England in his maiden series. Kambli hit a golden run of form scoring yet another double ton against Zimbabwe in his very next Test outing. But, his problem with short pitch deliveries exposed him pretty quickly.

His technical limitations soon got exposed and the left-hander had a horrid time on seaming pitches in New Zealand followed by a dismal run with the bat at home against a quality Windies pace attack of Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Winston Benjamin. A spree of poor scores forced him out of the Indian Test squad.

It indeed was a shame that at the age of only 24, a batsman of Kambli’s prowess had played his last Test for India. He continued to pile runs in domestic cricket but never returned to the squad with serious competition.

2. Wasim Jaffer:

Wasim Jaffer is one of the legends of Indian domestic cricket and unfortunately, one of those players who hardly got a chance to prove his mettle at the highest level.

However, he has to blame himself for it, as he didn’t convert his domestic brilliance to the Indian National Cricket Team.

Currently, he holds the record of scoring maximum runs to his name in the 85-year long history of the tournament. He has scored 19410 runs in 260 first-class matches at an average of 50.67 with 57 centuries and the highest score of 314*.

Wasim Jaffer got his chances initially and impressed one and all with his big knocks.

However, because of his old-fashioned approach to the game, he was dropped from the team which paved the way for Sehwag-Gambhir’s formidable opening combination.

Since then, Jaffer has not been able to make a comeback into the national team.

1. Dinesh Karthik:

If we have an opportunity to name a book after him, without any hesitation, we can put that as “A Career With Missed Opportunities”. During his initial days in cricket, Dinesh Karthik was a superstar in Chennai and the budding youngsters wanted to be and play like him in the middle. He was the first-choice wicket-keeper for a while for the Sourav Ganguly-led Indian side before MS Dhoni making waves with his cricketing skills.

Having risen through the ranks in age-group cricket, Karthik started to make the selectors’ shortlist after a string of centuries in the 2002-03 season for the Tamil Nadu Under-19 side.

Karthik immediately caught the public eye when he debuted for India in ODIs as a 19-year-old in late 2004.

After the emergence of Dhoni, Karthik has made comebacks into the side as a pure batsman but failed to topple over Dhoni for the wicketkeeping position.

It was in 2007 when he made a solid comeback to the Indian team as an opener of the team in overseas Test series. He ended that as the top run-scorer of the team.

Since then, he had a roller-coaster ride with a lot of ups and downs. With all those incredible skills, he could have attained the status of a legend but that wasn’t the case.