Sport - Cricket

My time will come: Robin Uthappa

Karachi: Three pairs of feet have been busy trying to measure up to the huge imprints left by Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina have done their bit despite the pressure of coping with the injury-induced absence of Tendulkar while a ‘pro-youth’ policy has also benched Dravid and Ganguly in ODIs.

But in this list of young batsmen who made their mark, one name is missing — Robin Uthappa. The dapper batsman who scored 86 in a winning-cause against England on his debut at Indore in 2006, has flickered often but has failed to become an enduring flame unlike the trio of Gambhir, Raina and Rohit.

“Every player gets his time to perform and I am sure by the grace of God I will get my time too,” Uthappa told The Hindu.

A meagre 159 runs from his last ten innings has not done justice to his talent that often withers with impetuous shots. Uthappa, however, has his own take on the subject. “I have done reasonably well in international cricket but if you watch my numbers, I have never had a fixed slot and that does affect the runs,” said Uthappa, who has scored 766 runs in 37 ODIs averaging 27.35 with a strike-rate of 94 per cent.

What about being bowled by Bangladesh’s Shahadat Hossain after scoring just two here recently? “When I walked in, I knew that was the only game for me and that I won’t be part of the eleven for the next and I guess I wanted to make an impact and when you focus too much on the result, you tend to overlook the process. I was disappointed with the way I got out,” Uthappa said.

Uthappa also mentioned the mellowing influence of international cricket. “Temperamentally I have become mature and that has helped my batting.”

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