'A great chance'
Drafted into the Rest of India side for the Irani Trophy match in place of injured Sachin Tendulkar, hardworking middle order batsman Subramaniam Badrinath terms it a great opportunity coming his way to make it to the Test squad with a good knock against Ranji champions Delhi.
Badrinath, who is captaining India A in a triangular series involving A sides of Australia and New Zealand before his inclusion in the Rest team, is itching to go out in the middle at Vadodara.
"Maybe the time has come for me now. It's a great feeling... Tremendous to know that I'll play for Rest. I would like to make use of this opportunity; a good knock means chance to make the Test squad against Australia," said the Tamil Nadu batsman who scored a match-winning 69 not out against New Zealand A on Wednesday.
"I can't ask for more, if I make a debut against the world champions," Badrinath told PTI from Chennai in an interview.
Shrugging off the notion that luck plays a role in a cricketer's career, Badrinath says he believes in hard work.
"I am not somebody who is a firm believer in luck. I believe in hard work and wait for the right opportunity. The incidents in the past (of coming so close to selection but not making it) have made me strong mentally," he said.
True for somebody with a first-class average of 55.92 and 40-plus in List A matches only Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar, among batsmen still active and with at least 50 innings, have a higher first-class average but yet has been ignored in the last three years.
Despite three successful Ranji seasons since 2005-06 when he averaged almost 80 scoring 636 runs from seven matches, Badrinath never made to the playing eleven of the national side, though he was called up for the three-ODI Australia series last October.
But the cool and soft-spoken Badrinath never gave up his unflinching will and showed his anguish.
Call it luck or fate, Badrinath, having remained in the sidelines for about 10 months, was named Tendulkar's replacement in the Sri Lanka ODI series.
"A coincidence," says Badrinath, who did not let the selectors down in his debut series.
Batting at No 7, where batsmen hardly get to score big and sacrifice their wickets in throwing their bats in the slog overs, Badrinath played like an experienced batsman with a defying 27 not out, very crucial in the context of a low-scoring 143-run chase in Dambulla, which India won by three wickets and the Tamil Nadu right-hander earned high praises from his skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
"It feels great to have begun like that. Being a debut series, it was very important for me. I did not want to do anything extraordinary but played according to the context of the game and it worked as Dhoni and I scored the vital runs," Badrinath said, recalling his 60-run sixth wicket partnership that took the team to a win in the second one-dayer.
Badrinath acknowledges that he's really going through a high at the moment and the selection to the Irani Trophy game has come at the right and opportune moment.
"It's important that the selection has come at a time when you're at peak form. I have been batting well recently. I had a very good last year, scoring big in India A tours to Zimbabwe and Kenya, and in the home series against South Africa A... Moreover, I've been scoring runs in all forms of the game," he said.
In the same vein, Badrinath also gives credit to the Indian Premier League (IPL) effect.
"Yes, certainly, it played a role to come under the notice... It was hugely successful, a revelation after all," Badrinath, who represented Chennai Super Kings which finished runners-up, said.
The IPL saw Badrinath averaging 32 from 16 matches with two half-centuries.
With Mohammad Kaif back in favour after his selection to the Rest squad and Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina already in there, there's talk of Badrinath joining the middle-order to fill-up the slot of one of the Big Four (Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman) in future.
But the Tamil Nadu batsman with 4586 runs from 65 first-class matches rubbishes such notion.
"They have more than 70,000 international runs between them. To think of filling in their shoes is something very big. I just hope to do well if given the chance," Badrinath said ahead of their match against New Zealand A on Sunday, which incidentally will be his last in the A Series.
Having been named as Tendulkar's replacement in Irani Trophy, Badrinath will leave for Vadodara on Monday.
The season opener, the Irani Trophy four-day match between Rest of India and last season's Ranji champions Delhi, is from Wednesday.
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