Team India’s veteran all-rounder and arguably one of the best T20 players, Suresh Raina, has had an incredible career at the international level. He is the first Indian batsman to hit centuries in all formats.
Additionally, Raina has been a vital part of India’s winning campaigns in the 2011 World Cup as well as the 2013 Champions Trophy. In 226 ODIs, Raina has scored 5615 runs with five hundreds and 36 half-centuries. The left-handed attacking batsman has 1605 runs to his name in the shortest format. Furthermore, Raina is regarded as ‘Mr IPL’ because he is the only batsman to score 350+ runs in every season of the cash-rich tournament.
Despite the sparkling career, Raina hasn’t featured in the Team India squad since 2018. His last appearance came against England in a T20 game at Bristol. Raina must be hoping to exhibit excellent show in the upcoming season of IPL for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as that would firm his chances of featuring in the T20 World Cup, which has been postponed until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, former Australia cricketer Brad Hogg thinks otherwise. Hogg has opined that Raina’s India career is over and the probability of him making an international comeback is not possible. Hogg said that India captain Virat Kohli is looking to promote youngsters in the team. He stated that the ideal position for Raina would be at the number four spot, which is also very well occupied by Shreyas Iyer.
“But if you look at Indian line-up right now, where Virat Kohli wants to take it, he is looking at youngsters at the moment. And Shreyas Iyer has done reasonably well at no. 4, and that is where Raina is going to bat. I don’t see him batting lower down the order. He’s more of the batsman that comes in at no.3 or 4 and bats through the middle overs. I don’t think there is a role for him in Indian cricket,” Brad Hogg said on his YouTube channel.
The 49-year-old further said that the chances of Raina’s comeback depend only when another left-hand batsman Shikhar Dhawan is left out of the team.
“The only way he could get a chance to make a comeback in T20 cricket is if they continue to open with KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma and leave Shikhar Dhawan out so that he may have a slight chance there. But I don’t see Raina playing again, and that’s a little disappointing to say,” Hogg added.
