How much of
Cricket do you follow ! ~ and did you read about this fast bowler announcing
retirement from all forms of Cricket !!
Leslie O'Brien
Fleetwood-Smith, played in 10 Test matches for Australia
between 1935 and 1938, taking 42 wickets. A left-arm spin bowler who changed
his style after breaking his right arm as a schoolboy, he often exploited the
googly and the "chinaman" with effect.
A few decades ago, we read
interestingly about Cricket camps before
Overseas tours, when Barun Burman, Jyoti Prasad .. .. came close to selection
and a young lad Kapil Dev was denied extra rotis, stating that there are no
pace bowlers in India. In 1970s, we had heard of Abid Ali, Solkar, Madanlal,
Ghavri opening the bowling and India’s fortunes changed with the advent of
great Kapil Dev ! .. .. remember that in
Chennai 1st division league there were young lads bowling fast – not only
locals like Rajamannar, Bharathkumar, Arunkumar, Kalyanasundaram, TA Sekhar,
Arun – but from MRF - Vivek Razdan, Subroto Banerjee and Ashish Winston Zaidi.
In 2014 – in England,
after Indians were bundled out – Alastair Cook pulled Varun Aaron playing his
2nd test after his debut in 2011 into the hands of Pankaj Singh ! (post is on
him on his retirement)
In the 3rd Test at Southampton the tall
Pankaj Singh became 282nd player to
represent India in Test matches. The previous
player from Rajasthan was Parthasarathi
Sharma who played against the WI in 1975.
Pankaj had taken more than 300
wickets – Dilip Doshi had scalped close to 500 before he made his debut at
Chennai and Amit Mishra also completed 300 first class wickets before his
debut. So it was Test no. 2132 in July
2014. Scorecard does not paint a happy
picture for Team India - England 569 for 7 dec (Bell 167, Ballance
156, Cook 95, Buttler 85) and 205 for 4 dec (Cook 70*, Root 56*) beat India 330
(Rahane 54, Dhoni 50, Anderson 5-53) and 178 (Rahane 52*, Moeen 6-67, Anderson
2-24) by 266 runs thus ending a winless run of ten Tests, which began in previous August.
In the next Test Pankaj
Singh took the wickets of Joe Root and Jos Butler but never would have imagined
that they would be his career haul ..
there have been so many fast bowlers representing India – Kapil was
phenomenal, then there were the likes of Javagal Srinath, Zaheer, Irfan,
Ishant, Bumrah, Shami, Bhuvneswar and
more .. and some like Yograj who bowled
fast but played a solitary test and luckless fearsome TA Sekar.
Pankaj Singh, a tall and
strapping right-arm medium-fast bowler from Rajasthan, progressed from the Under-19 level to the
India A side with consistent performances. By 2006
he started showing signs of having matured, taking Rajasthan to the final of
the Ranji Plate league, with 21 wickets at 20.95. In 2007, he was part of India
A's twin tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya, and a total of 18 wickets in the
unofficial Tests and ODIs in Kenya earned him a spot for the home series
against South Africa A. With Sreesanth and Munaf Patel injured, he earned a
call-up to India's Test squad to tour Australia. He signed with the Rajasthan
Royals in the inaugural IPL before transferring to Royal Challengers Bangalore
for the second season. His next big break came when he was included in the
limited-overs sides for India's tour of Zimbabwe, when the selectors decided to
rest several senior players. He was among the top wicket-takers in the
Ranji Trophy between 2009 and 2014 and also produced match-winning efforts for
Rajasthan during their title wins in 2010 and 2011. He was finally rewarded for
his performances with a spot in India's Test squad on the tour to England in
2014
Now comes
the news that former fast bowler Pankaj Singh, 36, has retired from all forms
of cricket, thereby ending his professional career that spanned nearly 17
years. Singh said he had to listen to his body after a bout of Covid-19 left
him feeling weak. "I
was down with Covid, and once I recovered, the post-Covid symptoms left me
drained," he told ESPNcricinfo. "Also, when I looked at where I
stand, I felt I wouldn't have added anything by pushing on for one more year.
During the previous domestic season itself I realised it's hard to come out
after months of not playing. Training and conditioning to play a full season
seemed tough, so I thought I should listen to my body and retire."
In 2019, Singh became the
first seamer to take 400 Ranji Trophy wickets. Overall, he finishes with 472
first-class wickets in 117 matches, apart from picking 118 List A wickets and
43 T20 wickets. The domestic stalwart ends his career
with new entrants Puducherry, but it's his body of work with Rajasthan
that stands out.
"Getting
my Test cap from Sourav Ganguly in England was special," Singh said.
"I am fortunate to have played under a legend like MS Dhoni. Playing Test
cricket is my most cherished memory as a professional cricketer. It came after
a lot of struggles, so that has to be the most special memory." Singh is a Level-2
certified BCCI coach, having recently taken part in a course conducted by the
NCA. With a full-fledged domestic calendar announced, Singh hopes to transition
into guiding youngsters, both in Rajasthan and elsewhere.
Sadly on his debut test
: Pankaj had figures of 37-8-146-0 &
10-4-33-0 & then in the next test 28-5-113-2. Thus his 2 international wickets came at 292
runs! – and you have many big names in
that list including Imran, Sarfraz, Vaas, Jeff Thomson and the whispering death
Michael Holding. The feared quickie with
such a smooth run-up Holding made his debut at Brisbane in 1975 – went on to
take 249 test wickets and 142 ODI wickets – but went wicketless conceding 81
& 46 in the 2 innings; while the fiery pacer Thommo gave 100 without a
wicket on his debut.
Pankaj Singh’s debut
became forgettable as he has the dubious record of most expensive in debut –
the towering 1.98m paceman finished with a match haul of 0-179 when England declared its second innings on 4-205
in the third Test at Southampton. The previous worst was 0-164 by Pakistan’s
Sohail Khan against Sri Lanka in Karachi in 2009. The worst performance in an
innings on debut is that Aussie
leg-spinner McGain. In what proved to be
his only Test, McGain was smashed for 149 in 18 wicketless overs (a shocking
8.27 runs an over) as South Africa made 651 all out at Cape Town in 2009 before
going on to win by an innings and 20 runs.
Pankaj
should consider himself unlucky as England captain Alastair Cook was dropped on
15 in the slips by Ravindra Jadeja, and
Ian Bell, then on nought, survived a confident lbw appeal when Singh bowled well – but his career is
not reflective of that. Much like
Thirumalai Ananthanpillai Sekhar who bowled well in Pak – saw two key Paki
batsman dropped off his bowling and eventually did not strike it big in Test. Life is harsh on some.
If you remember that Smith
name of second para, LO Fleetwood-Smith
in test in Aug 1938 (test 266) had
figures of 87-11-298-1 !!!! – close to 300 conceded; then there was an Indian Off-spinner
by name Rajesh Chauhan who had figures of 78-8-276-1 at Colombo on Aug 1997 in
Test no. 1374.
11th July 2021.
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