Vijay.Sharma Posted May 7, 2011 Posted May 7, 2011 Back in March-April 2004 the Indian team visited Pakistan for the first time since the Batting Buddha announced himself on the world stage. Fresh from its solid show in Australia a few weeks back, the Indian team won the hearts of many Pakistani fans. There was one especial, hitherto unheralded, cricketer who seemed to enjoy a lot of their attention particularly when the Indians visited universities and colleges in Pakistan to meet with the students and spend some time there interacting with Pakistan's future. A recent event in a one day game during the series seemed to trigger the sudden admiration for this unassuming, quiet south Indian medium pace bowler. He had the audacity to hit the fastest bowler that the game has ever seen for a six. There were chants of his name as soon as he entered the Ampi theaters / congregational halls of these colleges and universities. Now chants for Dravid, Sachin, Jumbo, Lax, and Dada were quite expected but it was totally unintuitive to notice that our south Indian bowling 'champion' outdid his more illustrious seniors and peers. Pakistani youngsters filled the halls with chants of "Ba la j,i Ba la ji, Ba la ji". When asked why he had become so popular among the kids, Balaji bashfully said "maybe because I am kala kala (dark skinned)". There is no question that the Indian medium pacer has one of the most contagious smiles...you are drawn to that smile and genuinely feel good for the guy and wish him well. As it turned out he needed all those good wishes, maybe could have done with even more. Balaji was struck down by a career threatening injury to his back and was out of competitive cricket for a couple of seasons since his heroics in Australia and Pakistan in early 2004. Balaji was never a fast bowler who could bowl 85 mph regularly and crank it up the 90s every now and then. The fastest he ever bowled was the high 130s. It was his ability to move the ball, in the air, more so off the pitch which earned him his livelihood. He was canny and had a naturally cocked wrist action which allowed him to bowl testing leg cutters. India seemed to have found a successor to Venkatesh Prasad only that Balaji was a yard quicker than Prasad. Almost four years later when Balaji finally made a come back to cricket at the higher levels he was welcomed with warmth and hope from his Chennai Super Kings fans. In almost a scripted fashion, Balaji repaid their love and support with a 5for and hat trick to go along with it. But there was something easily noticeable: he had cut down his run up, treadmill-ing his first few paces, and more importantly his pace had reduced even further. A guy who bowled 130-135 kmph was now bowling 120-130 kmph. Fortunately his leg cutters were not lost during the hibernation if anything he seemed a little more canny. But T20 has a cruel almost sadistic way of keeping bowlers from feeling as equals. The ugly swipes and horizontal swats by batsmen who wouldn't last an over of testing incisive cutters of Balaji on a slightly neutral pitch, finally got the better of him. Balaji spent the next two seasons being steady without being spectacular. He was similarly steady in the domestic competitions as well and in spite of India's pace bowling department not lighting up the world scene a call up for national duties was nowhere in sight...quite rightly so one would think. A new auction and a new season of IPL saw him switch allegiances to KKR. In his first game for KKR one could notice Balaji had changed his run-up: the treadmill-ing was conspicuous in its absence. Balaji approached the crease smoothly and with an assertive delivery stride let go his first ball bending his back a little more than he did in the last 3 years. The ball was slightly short of a good length and caught the Player of the Tournament of IPL 2010, Suresh Raina, by surprise as he did not expect his erstwhile CSK team mate to make him hop. The speedometer read 142 kmph. I rubbed my eyes and after pinching myself I was confident I had seen the right digits on the TV. I was quick to dismiss it off as an effort ball and eagerly awaited the next ball. Raina, again awkwardly, played the next one and took off for a single. The dial read 143.2 kmph. Balaji had my attention now. On the next ball the clock read 147 kmph. By the end of the over apart from a deliberate slower one in the 110s, his slowest hurl was at 141.7 kmph. Not one to come to conclusions too soon, I watched the next over. His slowest ball remained 141.7 kmph apart from a couple of deliberate slower ones in the 110s. By the end of the game that day the slowest hurl outside the deliberate slow bouncers clocked 140.9 kmph. I had never seen Balaji bowl at this pace before. KKR's next game confirmed Balaji was bowling in the 140s regularly and high 140s on effort balls. As the IPL progressed I observed the meter every time Balaji bowled and apart from a few balls countable on the fingers of your hand he hasn't hurled one below 138 slow bouncers excluded. As we stand today, Balaji's IPL 2011 performances read as follows: 4-0-25-0 4-0-31-0 4-0-31-0 3-0-15-3 4-0-23-0 4-0-43-1 (Gayle's 102) 4-0-38-2 3-0-21-0 4-0-33-1 An economy of 7.6 rpo given that he has often been held back to be used in the death overs is quite a good show so far. It's time to look at Balaji closely once again as a prospect for India. Maybe the touring party to West Indies can find a place for him given that he is no rookie when it comes to international cricket. As one of the Pakistani girls explained during Balaji's encounter with the Pakistani youngsters back in 2004, that it was his name, Balaji, which had the suffix 'ji' that added to his charm. The Pakistani youth found it endearing since a 'ji' is added to the name of a person when addressing him, as a mark of respect. By the end of that tour there was, for the first time, a medium pace bowler from India achieving cult status among the Pakistani youth. Go Bala...ji!
Vijay.Sharma Posted May 10, 2011 Author Posted May 10, 2011 Awww come on guys, no inputs about Balaji. I think he has been the most consistent Indian bowler to have hit the 140s this IPL season along side Ishant. And he's bowled well too. Did you ever imagine him being able to crank it up to the 140s?
vvvslaxman Posted May 10, 2011 Posted May 10, 2011 I don't think he has proven enough to be recalled.
Vijay.Sharma Posted May 10, 2011 Author Posted May 10, 2011 Whom would you like to send to the Carib? Consider only the T20 and ODI games. As far as tests are concerned we already have identified the ones to invest in
rkt.india Posted May 10, 2011 Posted May 10, 2011 Awww come on guys, no inputs about Balaji. I think he has been the most consistent Indian bowler to have hit the 140s this IPL season along side Ishant. And he's bowled well too. Did you ever imagine him being able to crank it up to the 140s? once in a blue moon....i dont know the reason to look back now...we should look for new guys and give them confidence and experience. same mistake selectors did when they recalled Nehra and ignored youngsters....we need to look for future now.....young blood should be tried...they may struggle initially but in the guidance of Zak, they will improve.....Ishant, Tyagi, Yadav, Aaron, even Wagh and prasanth looked good. Suyal, Kulkarni, Nechim are not bad too...give these guys some direction. going back to old wont take us anywhere...this is only a short term solution...short term solution doesn't for good for long term.
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