Player of the Month (May '06) : Suresh Raina
Elegant cover drives, powerful pulls, and a pair of delicate, soft hands. The things you that flash in your mind when you think of Suresh Kumar Raina. At the tender age of 19 and after only 21 ODI?s Raina has cemented himself into the Indian One Day team. Whether if it?s guiding India to victory with the bat, or taking a miracle catch in the covers, Raina makes an impact.
In the domestic season, Raina tore bowling attacks apart. 620 runs in 6 games caught the attention of Rahul Dravid, Greg Chappel, and the Indian selectors.
Raina made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka at Dumbulla, in July 2005. Things looked bad for him as he was out for a first ball duck, LBW to Mularitharan. He did, however, Run-out a dangerous looking Attapatu, in a lost cause.
Raina then, silenced the critics with a string of good performances with the bat, and electric fielding in the cover region. It wasn?t surprising that Raina was already in contention for a test slot, before even hitting an ODI 50. Scores of 35, 2, 29, 13, 35*, 24, 81*, 61, 21, 2, 53, 40, and 6 against many of the best bowlers in the world barely tell the whole story. Averaging a solid 43.48 with a sum of 242 runs in 6 matches against England with 3 50?s is pretty good, adding solidity to the Indian middle order.
Raina is phenomenal, be it his aggressive batting, electric fielding, or even his tricky off-spin, he is something to look out for. He finishes of the hard work and sets the stage for people like Dhoni and Pathan to finish it off in the end. Many people compare him to the likes of Ganguly, and consider him to be the future ?Tendulkar? of India.
Whatever it is, Raina wants to make a mark himself.
Watch out World Cup, Raina is coming.
-By Cricketman
[img:1jk8lwab]http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b376/cricketman93/del74d.jpg[/img:1jk8lwab]
Elegant cover drives, powerful pulls, and a pair of delicate, soft hands. The things you that flash in your mind when you think of Suresh Kumar Raina. At the tender age of 19 and after only 21 ODI?s Raina has cemented himself into the Indian One Day team. Whether if it?s guiding India to victory with the bat, or taking a miracle catch in the covers, Raina makes an impact.
In the domestic season, Raina tore bowling attacks apart. 620 runs in 6 games caught the attention of Rahul Dravid, Greg Chappel, and the Indian selectors.
Raina made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka at Dumbulla, in July 2005. Things looked bad for him as he was out for a first ball duck, LBW to Mularitharan. He did, however, Run-out a dangerous looking Attapatu, in a lost cause.
Raina then, silenced the critics with a string of good performances with the bat, and electric fielding in the cover region. It wasn?t surprising that Raina was already in contention for a test slot, before even hitting an ODI 50. Scores of 35, 2, 29, 13, 35*, 24, 81*, 61, 21, 2, 53, 40, and 6 against many of the best bowlers in the world barely tell the whole story. Averaging a solid 43.48 with a sum of 242 runs in 6 matches against England with 3 50?s is pretty good, adding solidity to the Indian middle order.
Raina is phenomenal, be it his aggressive batting, electric fielding, or even his tricky off-spin, he is something to look out for. He finishes of the hard work and sets the stage for people like Dhoni and Pathan to finish it off in the end. Many people compare him to the likes of Ganguly, and consider him to be the future ?Tendulkar? of India.
Whatever it is, Raina wants to make a mark himself.
Watch out World Cup, Raina is coming.
-By Cricketman
