One of the most unfortunate tales in Indian cricket is that of Bengal batsman Manoj Tiwary. The domestic stalwart never got the opportunities he deserved at the highest level.
After making his debut in 2008 Commonwealth Bank Series in Brisbane, Tiwary only made sporadic appearances in the national side since then.
He last featured for India back in July 2015 and ever since has been out of favour for the selectors. Tiwary only has 12 ODI and 3 T20I caps to his name, with the best score of 104* against West Indies.
No one expects to be dropped for the next 14 games after scoring a century and winning the ‘Man of the Match’ Award. But such was the case with the prolific run-scorer for Bengal.
Looking back at his career, Tiwary thought of questioning former Indian captain MS Dhoni several times as to why he repeatedly faced the axe from the selectors. A fringe player, Tiwary was only called into the national side whenever senior players were rested or injured.
“100% I believe that. I’ve always been vocal about this (not getting chances) because I never thought after scoring a 100 for my country and getting a Man of the Match award. I will not find a place in the playing XI for next 14 games,” Tiwary told Boria Mazumdar on Fancode’s show ‘Lockdown But Not Out’.
“But I do also respect the fact that the captain and the coach or the management had some other ideas as well because we as a player have to respect whatever they were thinking at that point of time,” Tiwary further added.
Manoj played under Dhoni in the now-disbanded Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) franchise. Tiwary was also an integral part of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) setup initially.
He was even snubbed in the recent IPL auctions. Then, former cricketer, Murali Kartik expressed his surprise regarding franchises not showing interest in bagging the services of Tiwary.
“I never got the opportunity or you say the courage at that point of time to go and ask Mahi, our captain during that time because we respect our seniors so much that we tend to hold back ourselves on questioning a few things. So I haven’t questioned him yet,” rued Tiwary.
“I wanted to ask him during my RPS days but because of the game situation and the intensity in the IPL or maybe otherwise, I try myself to hold back because I don’t want to make anyone’s mindset unhappy or upset at that point of time so that it affects. But I’ve obviously thought about asking him in the future,” concluded Tiwary.
