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Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre

The Outsider

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The Outsider Newbie

The Outsider

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Not many batsmen who play seven of their eleven test matches abroad and average 42.50 get dropped permanently. Specially if their first innings was a back to the wall century in South Africa's den, Durban. Unfortunately, Pravin Amre was one such unfortunate soul. A compact player with a solid backfoot technique and a flourishing square cut, Amre emerged under the guidance of Achrekar, of the Tendulkar/Kambli fame. Amre made his international debut against South Africa in their first ODI after gaining acceptance from the cricketing world at Calcutta. Chasing 178 to win, India had stumbled to 60/4 and proceeded to lose Tendulkar at 116. The debutant weathered a fiery Donald, Snell, and McMillan in conditions ideal for swing bowling to take India to a win. He toured Austrlia and played in the World Cup there as well but could not score quickly or effectively enough to cement his spot. He showed the same grit, determination, and technique on his test debut where India once again were at the edge, struggling at 38/4 and then 146/7 in reply to South Africa's 254. The pitch was hard and bouncy and the attack was top notch in Donald, Schultz, McMillan, and Pringle. Showing immaculate judgement of length, judiciously mixed with delicate cuts and elegant drives, Amre scored a century on debut in South Africa giving India a first innings lead and in sopophoric test match assuring they wont end up on the losing side. In an otherwise forgettable ODI series, he was instrumental in India registering one of their only two wins on the tour making an unbeaten 84 off 98 deliveries. What followed was bizarre even by Indian selection standards. In the home series against England and Zimbabwe, Amre scored three half centuries in four innings and found himself never playing a test ever again after scores of 21, 15*, and 21 on the Sri Lankan tour which followed. To be fair, he did not do well in ODIs during that period but that was one of the shortest ropes in Indian cricket on the basis of his test performance. Amre continued to score heavily in domestic cricket and finished his FC career with an average of 48.86. Not even a solid 90 against the touring WI playing for the Board President's XI could get him another shot at international glory and with the advent of Ganguly and Dravid in 1996, hopes were receding for him. He made a last ditch effort in '99-'00 by playing in South Africa's domestic league for Boland but a disappointing 244 runs @ 24.4 were never going to be good enough and he retired from FC cricket after that season.

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kumble_rocks Newbie

kumble_rocks

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre I followed Amre from the start of his career and would agree with OP and the fact that he got a raw deal. One of the main reason I attribute his failure in ODI is the fact that he was a late middle order batsmen often coming in the slog overs and was expected to hit from the word "Go". That was not his forte and that would explain the poor average of 22 in ODI to some extent. In tests, the Indian middle order was and always has been one of the toughest slot to play in Indian cricket with so much competition. Early in his career, he was expected to compete for the only available spot in the middle order with Kambli with Sachin and Azhar pretty much selecting themselves. Coupled with the fact that , overrated Kambli was in such glorious form early in his career , Amre lost out inspite of good test average. Kambli was a true FTB compared to Amre in my opinion. Kambli would make Ganguly appear like a seasoned veteran against short picth bowling. Also, I feel that Amre was more in the Gary Kirsten mold as a batsmen - gritty and compact , but one of the most unattractive batsmen to watch.

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Lurker Newbie

Lurker

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre Ah yes. Pravin Amre. One of the many that were tried in the year between 1990-95 time period. Amre was a dogged customer, not exactly a great strokemaker but one who put a value on his wicket. The typical Bombay batsman, what Sunny Gavaskar calls "khadoos". For people who did not see him bat imagine Rahul Dravid minus the technique but one who was as strong in the mind. Amre lost out due to the fact that he was a middle order batsman in an era that was already packed. The slot from 3-5 had Sachin Tendulkar, Azhar and the likes of Sanjay Manjrekar and/or Vinod Kambli. Azhar and Sachin were permanent fixture and Manjrekar and Kambli were pretty good bat themselves. No wonder Amre lost out to them in the long run. It must be said that there was a case of hard luck as Amre did not exactly do very bad in whatever chances he got. Maybe he should have done a VVS and try opening for a little while. Good dogged batsman to have in your team. xxx

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Lurker Newbie

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre

Was Amre really any better than Manjrekar or Kambli ?
Umm not really. See Manjrekar was the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket in mid 80's. He was supposed to be the batsman to carry the torch after Sunil Gavaskar retired. The expectations started off very high simply because he was the Great vijay Manjrekar's son. And his(Sanjay's) exploits in domestic cricket was quite good. Then he went to Pakistan in late 80's and came out as the best batsman, scored a double century etc etc and it was largely due to him that Indian team returned from Pakistan undefeated(all tests were draw). Personally I saw the man and liked him. He was technically very correct, even better than Dravid or SRT, but he failed to convert starts. Towards the end he was just a mere patch of his old self and was picked solely on name. A massived underachiever for India. Kambli was a fluent stroke player and had a very good start to his career. He started out as the other half of famed SRt-Kambli pair, right from schooldays and often it was said Kambli was the better batsman. He surely had more strokes, and when in flow he was as good as Lara. He really was. For a year or two anyway. I beleive his overall career average is still above 50. His weakness to short bowling was greatly exploited by Walsh and that kind of proved his Achilles heel. His indiscipline in life also costed him severely and he slowly faded out. Amre was not as technically correct as Sanjay, and did not have the strokes as Kambli. He did have the heart of a lion though but unfortunately that wasnt enough to pick him. Also I think it would have created a storm in Indian cricket if 4 of 3-7 batsmen were all Bombay players - Sachin, Kambli, Manjrekar, Amre with Azhar being the only non-Mumbaite. xxx
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Predator_05 Newbie

Predator_05

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre Yeah, i thought so. Manjrekar was a technically correct batsman who played textbook cricket and had a very dogged approach, and Kambli had all the shots in the book. I remember Kambli's innings in the Hero Cup final, some awesome punches. He also hit Shane Warne for 20 runs in an over once at Sharjah; an incredible player of spin. He had a mean pull shot on him as well. I'd say these two were the real wasted careers of Indian cricket.

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The Outsider Newbie

The Outsider

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre Manjrekar was techinically more sound than Amre and Kambli a better stroke player. I was questioning the logic of dropping Amre after scores of 21,15*, and 21. Manjrekar was not in the team at that time and had been dropped after some pretty ordinary performances. I feel out of the three only Manjrekar was given proper chances to shine through and deliver. Kambli would probably be part II of the series.

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Lurker Newbie

Lurker

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre My wasted XI Akash Chopra(still has hope) Sanjay Bangar(no hope) Sanjay Manjrekar(underachiever) Vinod Kambli(lack of discipline cost him) Praveen Amre(tough luck) Ajay Jadeja©(match fixxxxer :mad: ) Sadanand Vishwanath(wk) (went from top of world to bottom...in 1 season) Shivaramakrishnan(what a waste of talent) Subroto Banerjee (tough luck again) Vivek Razdan(wasnt persisted with) Maninder (another waste of talent) xxxx

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kumble_rocks Newbie

kumble_rocks

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre

My wasted XI Akash Chopra(still has hope) Sanjay Bangar(no hope) Sanjay Manjrekar(underachiever) Vinod Kambli(lack of discipline cost him) Praveen Amre(tough luck) Ajay Jadeja©(match fixxxxer :mad: ) Sadanand Vishwanath(wk) (went from top of world to bottom...in 1 season) Shivaramakrishnan(what a waste of talent) Subroto Banerjee (tough luck again) Vivek Razdan(wasnt persisted with) Maninder (another waste of talent) xxxx
Lurker, Don't you think Abhey Kuruvilla and Raju Kulkarni would be deemed bigger waste of career compared to Vivek Razdan or Subroto Banerjee.
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Lurker Newbie

Lurker

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Re: Wasted Careers - I : Pravin Amre KR, I must say that I did consider both Kuruvilla and Raju Kulkarni. However what tilted the favour in Subroto Banerjee and Vivek Razdan's favour was that the latter two had a more successful International career. Not neccessarily in terms of overall performance but for example Razdan had a 5 wicket haul in Pakistan and had greatly impressed everyone. In fact he had almost single handedly brought India in a very strong position in that game. Banerjee had a couple of good International games and had it not been for Kapil/Prabhakar/Sreenath he would have played more. Kulkarni had some good moments too. Kuruvilla I am not too sure of. xxx

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