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Robin Uthappa - The new soldier in Dravid's Army
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By BV Swagath, May 02, 2006
Getting selected for the Indian Team isn’t that
difficult these days with the Team Management
and the Selection Committee on a constant search
for fresh talented players who can easily fit
into the roles they specify. The present day
young players are getting plenty of coverage in
the media on a regular basis and plenty of
opportunities to play in important tournaments
that get televised. Lots of satellite channels
have cropped up in the recent years and each of
them has done their bit in acquiring the rights
for broadcasting some tournament or the other.
The U19 World Cups in particular have been shown
in an extravagant manner as any other
International Tournament would have been. The
case of the India U19 players making it to the
Indian Senior Side rapidly and getting selected
without much of first class experience has been
large over the years. There have been a number
of players who got selected to the Indian Team
largely due to their U19 performance and it’s a
long list that includes the likes of
Yuvraj Singh,
Mohammad Kaif,
Ajay Ratra,
Parthiv Patel,
Dinesh Karthik
etc to the present day
Suresh Raina,
RP Singh,
Piyush Chawla,
Robin Uthappa
and many more.
 Although
the U19 rookies, who have been selected to the
Indian team are all talented, sometimes they get
an undue advantage of getting their performances
seen by millions of people on a larger screen
often overtaking the players who have been
toiling hard in the Domestic Circuit for a long
time and who have got the runs and wickets
consistently. Hemang Badani, Sridharan Sriram,
Pankaj Dharmani, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, NP Singh
of Hyderabad, MSK Prasad and an incredible
number of players have all been confined playing
for just their states and zones in the Ranji
Trophy and Duleep Trophies. MSK Prasad is one
person who has shared his views on this same
topic that the successful first class cricketers
do not get the same kind of recognition as these
U19 guys get. Rare exceptions to this must be
Wasim Jaffer and Ramesh Powar who got back into
the side with the sheer weight of their strong
performances in the domestic circuit.
No one would have expected Robin Uthappa to have
made it to the Indian Side so soon and that too
with a moderate average of over 30 in first
class cricket. Looks like the Selectors have
some criteria for selecting the players, the
first one being that the player must be within
his early twenties, he should have a sparkling
talent, he should be a fielder who can cover
lots of ground quickly and to pick him in the
side, just one or two brilliant performances are
required. It’s the temperament too that seems to
have come naturally to some of these young
players who are so unfazed of playing against
the top players of the world and imagine these
rookies playing against arch rivals Pakistan
without any signs of pressure. Coming back to
Robin Uthappa, he is the new kid on the block
who has the temperament and the sparkling talent
to succeed at the International Level and he is
the man I am focusing on in this article.
A couple of years back in December 2003, I was
asked by my colleague to go to the Gymkhana
Grounds and interview a young player named Robin
Uthappa. My colleague had told me that here is a
promising young opening batsman who would make
his way into the Indian Team one day. It was
also my first ever interview in my career and
might also be the first one of Robin’s.
Karnataka was playing Hyderabad in a Ranji
Trophy match and the visitors had players like
Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi and Dodda Ganesh,
but I was there waiting for a man who I didn’t
know how he would look like and that was Robin
who was introduced to me by the team manager.
The interview was planned to be taken in Hotel
Taj Belsons and Robin Uthappa looked to have
this feeling of ‘interviewing me? I am not that
big now’. But he was smooth in the way he was
talking and he had this glow in his eyes and the
confidence that he would play for Team India
soon, but for that he has to cement his place in
the Karnataka Ranji Side to begin with. One of
the questions, I had asked Robin was how he was
going to handle the situation, if he had to open
the innings for India and with crores of people
glued to the match on their television sets. And
for that, Robin Uthappa had a smile…"what... you
are kidding…it’s a long way to go still for
me’". I didn’t put this
Q&A in the edited interview but Robin
Uthappa has answered that question on the 15th
of April in 2006, where he had smashed the
English bowlers all over the
Maharani
Usharaje Trust Ground for a scintillating 86.
That was no fluke innings as he was up against
four pacers who were bowling consistently above
140kmph. Add to the fact that Robin’s innings
was while chasing a reasonably high target of
289!
Robin Uthappa’s batting is simple; to begin with
he has the temperament which allows him to
concentrate on his game in the middle rather
than crumbling to the fear of failure. He does
seem to have that extra bit of time when he is
up against the pacers and although he does look
a bit shaky against the short stuff, he is just
fine in countering them. An interesting shot
that he plays is the hook shot that he has
played with reasonable success in some of his
best innings whether it was against England or
whether it was against the Indian quicks in the
Challenger Trophy. Once he picks the length of
the short one quickly, his hook shot comes out
which looks like he is using the pace of the
bowler and helping it well over fine leg for a
six with the middle of his blade. Robin is a
strong lad with broad shoulders and he is a
natural lofter of the cricket ball. Once he is
in the crease for a considerable amount of time,
a long off and a long on is a must as this
dashing batsman looks out to loft anything that
is pitched up on the goodlength regions. Like
any Indian batsman, he is also very strong on
his legs and its always easy pickings when the
bowler drifts onto his legs. Uthappa has also
shown that he is not afraid of using his feet to
the spinners and lofting them often and in the
end succeeding in spoiling the length that they
bowl. All in all as he keeps on working with the
best people in the game on his batting and with
constant talking with the likes of Rahul Dravid,
Sachin Tendulkar, Greg Chappell and others, this
young man will only improve and will stay the
distance to serve India at the top.
Well Robin Uthappa has made his mark and now he
will have to wait for his opportunities to come
and make sure that he keeps his head down and
make significant scores for himself and for his
country. Consistency is what he has to get into
his game and that is what the key is for
sustaining long International Careers. All the
best Robin in your journey as an Indian
Cricketer and wishing you all the success and
make sure that you keep the tricolour flying
with your performances.
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