The return of the Balaji smile

For nearly three years now, Lakshmipathy Balaji has been Indian cricket's answer to the aircraft that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle. There would be occasional stories of sightings, but a succession of injuries to match Andrew Flintoff's woes had reduced a once-promising career to a what-might-have-been story.

A stalwart of the Test side in home and away series against Pakistan [2004 and 2005], Balaji still has time on his side, provided the road back is traversed slowly. With his big smile and whole-hearted approach, you can't help but cheer for him, and those that never lost faith were rewarded on Saturday night when a stunning over effectively decided the match against the King's XI from Punjab.

And it wasn't as though Balaji picked off bunnies either. Ramnaresh Sarwan is a class act in limited-overs cricket, while Shaun Marsh hasn't had one bad game since filling in for the departed Simon Katich. And after a bouncer had thudded into the helmet and left Piyush Chawla all shook up, he returned for the final flourish.

Irfan Pathan and Chawla both fell attempting to slog their way to an impossible target, while VRV Singh skied one behind. The first hat-trick in the IPL and absolute bedlam in the stands.

For a Chennai line-up that relies so heavily on its batting prowess, Balaji's return is a huge bonus, especially with Makhaya Ntini struggling for rhythm and wickets. After a three-game slump, the Super Kings are once again in pole position for the semi-finals. More importantly, the smile is back. It's likely to infect the whole city, and beyond.

Comments

[Prateek Srivastava]

Yes it was great to see the forgotten hero come back with a bang. He was on the spot right from the word go. I hope he carries his form for the Kings. All the best, Balaji!

[Venkat Reddy]

Mr patel,
Just to respond to ur comments,i think its important that in jaipur we do get back to routine life as soon as possible.If anything it would be a fitting reply to all those cowards who set the bombs off.I think playing the games would tell the whole world that India is a safe place except for the odd incident.As a country we stand by the victims but we would also like to tell the whole world that no matter what our resolve as a nation would never be broken down.The 7/7 bombings took place just before the ashes of 2005 and yet the show did go on.Thats the bottom line.The show must go on.

[Dan Patel]

Being very mindfull of you constant reminders about libel laws in the UK, may I still be permitted to say that young Mr.Modi of IPL is a callous young man on a totally wrong track.

This greedy young man, in light of tonight's horrific events in Jaipur is quoted as saying that his IPL games in Jaipur will go on as planned.

Does this idiotic 'mommy and daddy's boy' not realise that there are 1000's of very distraught families in Jaipur tonight?

Finally this gem of a quote from him tonight: ''We will 'protect' the FOREIGN players in Jaipur.''

A product of the Raj forever. Or a Babuji at his best!!

[RamG]

You can write prose about how the Smile is back. But my point is we can't say anything after just few overs in the cricket's version of Mad Max. The great Hadlee once said that a bowler needs 130 overs of bowling in a first-class environment before he can be considered match-fit. He obviously knew something about bowlers! I only hope that the performances in IPL are not considered while selecting the teams for the longer versions of the game - our selectors can get carried away! For example, Pathan's 'performance' in IPL will make the selectors sit up and 'take notice'!

[bunty]

i dont agree that chawla is good enough yet for the longer format and this is reflected in both domestic n test cricket; ojha looks better than the rest, and has played well last 2 seasons actually, but is he good enough? pathan looks like with guidance from the likes of kumble n kanwaljit he could improve to be an effective spinner (but not high quality) to back up a quality pace attack- role of keeping it tight in adverse conditions, taking advantage of helpful conditions; amit mishra has also done well past year in limited opportunities
i agree that the bigger problem is the absence of quality batsmen and i have looked for sriram, venugopal (a fine 2nd innings player which team india currently seems to lack) and badrinath in team india for a while but they didnt make it n sriram now is too old. venu n badri have suffered in the long version by being asked to prove themselves first in the short format; its not clear that the promise they showed a few seasons ago in the long version survives the forced adjustments to the short version;
but an alternate order for india to consider (based also on the form shown in t20) - gambhir, viru, raina, venu, badri, r sharma, msd, yusuf pathan, gony, ishant, dinda
with ojha as 12th man
can give our seniors a run? y not stage a trial 5 day game on a relatively (for india) bouncy track between current team india seniors and this?
gambhir, badri, raina, yusuf have actually scored alot of ranji/duleep india 'a' runs in past year so are in t20 based on good scores in long version and dont need to prove they can score in the longer version as claimed by certain seniors;
the sum of ishant, dinda+gony in combination(with zak in reseve) is far greater than each individually; fielding would also improve on current team india;
at the end of the day though india have won overseas tests recently without high scores by quality seniors batsmen which didnt happen earlier though individual high scores were made and other teams without so many quality bats were more successful; so effectiveness is perhaps moreimportant than quality; cricket is a team game; warnes team has shown that; wadekar's beat england in 71 and 72-73 without great batting feats.

[neilsrini]

Bunty there are spinners, Chawla and Pragyan Ojha are amoung the spin prospects. Even Yusuf Pathan looks decent. My big big worry is where is the next great batsman. In a land that breeds batsmen in its sleep, we haven't produced a world class batsman in 10 years. This is frightening, because in the 90's I can tell you there were 10 other guys good enough to make it but never got the chance. Where are the perennial domestic giants, who get 2-3 double hundreds in a ranji season and bang hard on the doors of selection. It seems these young boys have learnt that you can make easy money by banging a ball hard into the stands and dont know how to construct and innings (look at Raina and Utthapa).

For me Venu should have been the next in the line of the wrist masters of India, following the holy line of Vishy, Azzhar (man that guy was grace personified, that innings at Lords was one to drool over) and VVS. That innings for South Zone (along with the mighty Sriram) to me was the greatest domestic innings of the decade. Awesome. It is such a shame that when he got an chance in the 2005 Chapple era, he was tagged as a slow Ranji stager and not given a chance after a couple of slow starts. He then lost form for Andhra and the move to Maharashtra was a stupid one in my opinion. He just needs to get runs he does not need the responsibility of the Maharashtra captaincy. He has not done enough domestically now and has a long long way back. A severe bout of cholera is about his best hope at present, which is a shame, because he has such an appetite for runs and such great temperament that he should be a 5000+ test runs man. Instead we will get a Yuvraj who can biff a 100 in 20 mins and then smile. This is what our country seems to value in its cricketers. Yuvraj has no hunger for big big runs he just wants to look good.

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/india/content/story/137053.html

[bunty]

very well played balaji and its good to see him back, but its too early to say whether he has recovered well enough for the rigours of the longer format especially given the tight and demanding test schedules; the pace cupboard looks good for india; the problem is where is the next quality spinner? and good to see venugopal rao do justice to his talent after years; just hope he can still play the traditional long format too

[neilsrini]

Excellent article by the way:
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/story/350683.html

its not too late for Bangalore to recruit some new faces, like Chennai by getting boys from Sri Lanka. Its just a shame there is depletion of some of the best locals by them going to ICL. Dravid needs to act fast and have some luck, otherwise like Gordon Brown he risks going down like a lead balloon.

[neilsrini]

The King was back alright. The screw in his back may yet be the end of the 135mph+ Balaji days (who knows with no domestic cricket behind him, its too soon to tell how much he can get back without occurring another injury), but the brain never left him, as he varied his deliveries more than Murali and was unplayable on the tennis ball pitch he grew up on. All those days of hard sweat in 100% humidity only to get injury after injury must now seem worth it, for one famous night in Chepauk he was the star again and children will go home chanting his "Balaji-Balaji".

The revival for the SuperKings has been all about the home grown talent. Finally Dhoni has placed faith in them after the slump and they have repayed him handsomely. Where it was Vidyut setting the tone against McGrath the other day, today it was the turn of Subramaniam Badrinath. This boy is not Mr Dependable of TN cricket for nothing. You don't average 56.49 in first class cricket with 15 hundreds for nothing, and he has been knocking hard on the doors of national selection without luck for some time now. Today he showed just what he was all about, when Dhoni finally gave him a decent birth in the batting line up. He will probably only get one or two shots at national selection in his life and will then be discarded, but tonight his name was up in lights as he tore into Sreesanth, Pathan, VRV and Chawla as he has done countless times on a domestic stage.

For all the talk of the foreign stars its been the home grown talent who have stayed the distance and got better and better as the tournament goes on. All the Punjab bowlers were good as they have been throughout, and Chawla looks like he will be a real handful in the future (you just wish he was on Warne's team, what a learning experience it would have been). But that boy Shaun Marsh looks like something special. He strikes the ball so cleanly and if his his footwork (or lack of it) does not get found out in the longer format of the game (remember nobody has found Hayden out yet), he may well fill the big boots he has to follow and some.