Ambati Rayudu leaves with “what could have been” regrets but who to blame for it all?

In July, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif put on a show at the Lord’s and showcased what the new India, under the inspiring leadership of Sourav Ganguly, could do in the aftermath of the match-fixing scandal that rocked Indian cricket altogether. In the following month, Mithali Raj, who was an unknown commodity then, had hit a sublime 214 to rise into the national consciousness. 

However, in the grand paradox of Indian cricket opera, one could just dream and the rest depends on how the stars align for you in the times to come. While the other members of that U-19 batch - the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik and RP Singh went on to have careers with varying degrees of success, Rayudu, for the longest time, remained as a fringe player and subsequently, a paradox in Indian cricket.

The love affair with Baroda didn’t last long too as he moved back to Hyderabad where he once had an infamous scrap with former BCCI chief Shivlal Yadav’s son Arjun Yadav. All this ensured Rayudu, until he made his debut for India in a low-profile ODI series in 2013, was in the news for everything other than his cricket. After all, a first-class average of 45.56 is not the stuff to garner attraction of the national selectors.

Even when he made an unbeaten 63 in his first game, like many things with him, this also proved to be a false dawn. International cricket can sometimes be a very cruel commodity and it is where the lines between the talented and hard-working cricketers begin to widen by a mile. But was Rayudu one among the former lot and never did try enough to be a successful cricketer? He is mild, but did he lack the “intent” - the buzz word in the Indian cricket ever since Virat Kohli took over the captaincy - to prove himself? Was his eventual non-selection in the World Cup team a byproduct of the lack of patience - both on and off the field?

Not even a year ago, we had Karun Nair and Murali Vijay complaining of the same, and then Shreyas Iyer, almost in an irritating tone, said that he has moved on from the thought of getting selected. And now Rayudu’s management lays bare the problems of a conservative hierarchy in Indian cricket, which, from the looks of it, seems to have dramatically failed to handle the assertive individualism of many modern-day Indian players.

As far as the case of Ambati Rayudu goes, the man himself is also to blame for his own downfall than the team management itself. When he got a lifeline after a cracking IPL with Chennai Super Kings in 2018, he should have realised that the opportunity with the Indian team could have changed his life for good, but instead, he managed to score only one half-century outside of the sub-continent - on a challenging Wellington deck - and lacked the spark to accelerate and to dominate the opposition at any point in time. His inclination for percentage cricket and the inability to cut loose when subjected to good bowling attacks brought the basic problem to the fore and that convinced the team management and the selectors that Vijay Shankar would be a better fit for the team.