Coal colored cool cricketer. Review on Ten Favorite Sports Personalities

(Mouthshut Does not have a sports personality called 'Ramesh Powar'. I have asked them to add about 2 weeks back and even after sending 3 mails to MS support, I havent got any response. So I am posting this here. Shall have this moved once (or) if at all the category gets added)

There are chances that you might not even have heard this fellow’s name. But for some reasons I like him a lot. There are Dravids, Sachins and Gangulys (I was once his fan too) in the side. But ask me to name my favorite cricketer now it would be Ramesh Powar. It is obvious that he will lose his place from international Indian cricket team sooner than later (I am getting just too overconfident in my judgment here, but I will only be happy if he proves me wrong), but his place in my heart will be forever! And this review dedicated to this cool cricketer himself!!!

Short Profile:

Name: Ramesh Powar

Age: 28

Ranji team: Mumbai

International appearances: 14 One-dayers; 0 Tests

Skin color: The color of coal

Body type: Looks like cylinder from all directions!

Attitude: As cool as dry ice

Bowling

Right arm off spin

He proved all the critics wrong. How many off spinners are criticized for their inability to bowl doosras. Even Muralidharan developed doosras very lately in his career (now, his doosras spin much more than his off spinners; that being an irrelevant detail for this write-up let me put the full stop). Powar has brought back conventional off spin bowling back to international cricket, in my opinion. He relies on flight and drift, rather than firing the flatter ones on the leg stump and the most hyped doosras.

I can see a Mark Waugh attitude in his bowling (he doesn’t look the part though). With those lovely coolers (sarcastic remark of course) on, he reads the mind of the batsmen till he releases the ball. If the batsman jumps down the track, he hits the middle of the pitch or throws the ball wider that the batsman cannot hike him over the ropes. This he does consistently. Even hardest hitters like pietersen have struggled to score easily against this boonish (newly derived term, meaning ‘like boon’ – David boon) cricketer.

With 16 wickets in 14 matches, going at a rate of 4.5 per over in this competitive one-day format is not bad at all.

Batting

Right arm batsman

He is more than a useful batsman. He can stick around and swat the slow bowlers out of the park. His contribution to the team as a batsman has not been much, except for one game where he played steadily and got a fifty against England. Nothing great about his batting to speak about, but he is no mug with the bat. If a player who comes in at no 10 can score a 50, it does add to team’s strength.

Fielding

(I am not able to give a description for this … )

Once, the ball was hit straight; this man was running from mid-off dived at full stretch; fell down with a thud (an awkward fall); but saved 3 important runs. He can dive around a bit. When you see him chase the ball, without wearing your specs, you might mistake him to be a giant black ball rolling behind a miniscule white ball as if it would crush it! Not very athletic, but he gives 100% on the field. At least he doesn’t let the ball through his legs like Ganguly (Diver might not like this statement, but unfortunate fact he cannot deny).

The man

Ramesh Powar is not handsome enough to make endorsements with big multinationals or even Babool tooth paste (That actually is not a bad product to sign him in; the teeth would look really bright!). He does not have any elegance about his game either in batting or in bowling that you could imagine him to contribute for short clips at the beginning of ‘Fourth Umpire’.

BUT, he is a good utility cricketer. He does his part really well. He is not a great player, but a very good performer. Great players haven’t been consistent performers off late (sorry Diver, my example again is Ganguly); but this guy is (in his short stint). He is into my choices of playing 11 any day.

Idea conveyed through the review:

Good cricketers come in all shapes and sizes!

-Vinayak

(Please do RRC)