Hi guys,
He was still the best in the country and was side-lined for reason still unknown to the public. He was given clean chit by the CBI on the match-fixing scandal...the only mistake all he did was during the kanpur one-dayer he followed the instructions of his captain. And his career took a twist from then. Last week Nayan Mongia gave up his chances of making a comeback in the Indian team.
If we recall Mongia was a regular in tests and one-day matches and Rahul Dravid was not in the playing eleven for one-days and India was still winning matches. Dravid has not done any miracle by keeping and batting for the country and the team needs a regular keeper.
We had Kirmani, Kiran More and Mongia.....after that the slot is still open with no potential contenders yet. Alec Stewart, Adam Gilchrist and Moin Khan are and were specialists in their job and were always included in the team for wicket keeping job and if they contributed in batting it was a bonus for their teams in both versions of cricket.
We had replaced Mongia by Samir Dhige, Saba Karim, Deep Dasgupta, Dahiya, Parthiv Patel, and list continues....and the result is that still we are not able to find anyone who can prove himself. Just a game of musical chairs. A time will come when all the wicket keepers of every state in India will be sitting out of the team after playing couple of matches for their country and Rahul Dravid will be on the verge of retirement.
Playing a specialist wicket keeper in Tests and One-dayers is more important then playing with more number of batsman. In the time frame of findng and replacing new wicket keepers, Mongia would have been by now broken some records and then said goodbye to Indian Cricket which in turn have helped Indian team to win some more matches and end up on a better slot in the world ranking.
All I can say that Mongia’s talent and speciality would have been as asset to Indian team in the past and he will not be playing again. But we all will remember him as one of the best wicket keepers of India in recent times.
Cheers and Wish you all The best for 2005 !