Manoj Tiwary: The man that destiny forgot

In cricket, just as any other game, luck plays a huge role. There are a few lucky players who do well for their respective domestic sides and get picked for the national team.

In cricket, just as any other game, luck plays a huge role. There are a few lucky players who do well for their respective domestic sides and get picked for the national team. If they do well, they get a decent run in the side. If they fail, they’re dumped for good. There are some luckier ones, who don’t justify their place and yet get a longer unfair run. And then there is Manoj Tiwary, the perennially unfortunate bloke who got an opportunity, did fairly well by scoring runs in testing conditions at hot and humid Chennai, and yet was forced to warm the benches for 14 games. [Also Read: The life and sorry times of Manoj Tiwary]

On Wednesday, when the Indian selectors announced ‘A’ squads to play a three-day match and three one-day matches against Bangladesh A, Tiwary’s name was missing from both the lists. That he didn’t do well against Zimbabwe a couple of months back is a fact. But then there were others like Ravindra Jadeja, who got picked despite doing nothing extraordinary. Tiwary wasn’t picked for the ‘A’ squads that played against South Africa ‘A’ and Australia ‘A’ last month either. What separates Jadeja and Tiwary however, is luck, which the former has in abundance, and the latter lacks big time.

Tiwary and misfortune go hand in hand. When he was first picked for India after a prolific debut domestic season in 2006-07, where he scored 796 runs from 7 matches at an astounding average of 99.50, he was already being seen as one for the future. But as luck would have it, a freak injury during one of the training sessions just ahead of his to be debut game, ruled him out from the tour. He got a chance again, when he was picked as a replacement for an injured Yuvraj Singh for the CB series Down Under in 2008.  Jet-lagged, he did make his debut in the first match, but Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson proved too hot to handle for the young lad. Tiwary struggled in the middle and finally Lee ended his ordeal with a lethal yorker. He didn’t play again in that series and was side-lined for three years.

It must have been frustrating for the man, to see his counterparts from the junior level enjoy a longer run in the side. But he never lost hope, trained hard and kept himself motivated by watching inspirational videos. He scored loads of runs for Bengal, East Zone, India A, Rest of India, Board President’s XI and every other team he played for, during the entire process. But his fortunes never changed. To make things worse, injuries remained a part of his career and made timely appearances to thwart his India comeback bids.

When the opportunities did come, he never got a continued run (He never played even three matches for India on the trot as late as July 2015). His batting position was frequently shuffled, not allowing him to settle and make any position his own. If he was an opener in a game, he played at four in the other. The man never got his due.

Tiwary could easily have walked into any past Indian team. But with game evolving a lot in last few years, making a comeback has become increasingly difficult. A new younger crop of cricketers has already set its feet firm and the competition for slots has increased manifolds. Tiwary, who will be touching 30 soon, has his time fast running out. The likes of Shreyas Iyer, Karun Nair, Kedar Jadhav and Unmukt Chand have leapfrogged him in the race to the national team. With him not making in the A sides, selectors seem to have made signs. The coming domestic season will be extremely crucial for the Howrah lad.

He badly needs some luck, which has eluded him his entire career, to get back into the side. But if the luck still doesn’t smile on him, the beloved ‘Chhota Dada’ of Bengal might end up as yet another addition to the list of unfortunate cricketers, which has the likes of Amol Muzumdar and Subramaniam Badrinath.

(A self-confessed cricket freak, Chinmay Jawalekar is senior content writer with Criclife. When not writing or following cricket, he loves to read, eat and sleep. He can be followed at @CricfreakTweets)

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