Unfair to compare Khawaja with Lara, ray of hope for West Indies and give Pandey chance

So why is Manish Pandey not being given more opportunities on India's T20 side? He is a gifted batsman, blessed with a wide range of strokes, knows how to pace an innings and has a strong mind, writes Chitrabhanu Kadalayil.

West Indies with the U19 World Cup. Munir uz Zaman / AFP

Usman Khawaja good, but not great

Six months after Michael Clarke and Chris Rogers retired, Australia arguably have Test cricket’s most solid batting order. And it is mostly because Adam Voges and Usman Khawaja, both just 14 Tests old, are in the form of their lives.

Voges scored a record 614 runs (across three innings) before he was dismissed by New Zealand’s Mark Craig on Sunday, while Khawaja has clocked 644 runs in his last six visits to the crease.

Both players have received plenty of attention, but Voges deserves higher praise, not just for batting at a ‘sub-Bradman’ average of 97.46, but because he is 36 years old. It is an age when most cricketers quit (unless you are Misbah-ul-Haq).

Khawaja, on the other hand, is only 29 and players are expected to hit their stride at that age, anyway. The left-hander is a late-bloomer and seems to be making up for lost time following two false starts to his international career.

But to compare him with the West Indian batting great Brian Lara, as some commentators have in recent times, is overstating his abilities.

A stirring in the Caribbean?

The irony of it. The senior West Indies cricket team are once again stuck in a pay dispute with their board and players’ association, a Groundhog’s Day state of affairs that the world has been stuck with since the very end of the last century.

It could threaten their chances at the World Twenty20, though there are suggestions that this latest dispute could be resolved, with intervention from the ICC, the sport’s Dubai-based world governing body.

On Sunday, in Dhaka, their Under 19 side won the World Cup for the very first time in the side's history, a result that in most countries would be bright ray of hope for the future.

In the West Indies, however, no such long-termism is possible.

What kind of future does the captain Shimron Hetmyer look forward to? Or Keacy Carty, whose unbeaten 52 navigated a tricky chase in the final? Or Alzarri Joseph, the fast bowler who took three wickets in the final?

Manish Pandey deserves better

Dileep Premachandran's column that appeared in Saturday's edition raised the point about the lack of options India's Tewnty20 side have in the middle order. The line-up does look threadbare after Ajinkya Rahane at No 4.

MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh are both in their mid-30s and past their best. Suresh Raina is good but inconsistent, Ravindra Jadeja has disappointed despite the all-too-evident promise, and Gurkeerat Singh and Hardik Pandya are yet untested.

So why is Manish Pandey not being given more opportunities? He is a gifted batsman, blessed with a wide range of strokes, knows how to pace an innings and has a strong mind – as was evident during his match-winning ODI hundred against Australia last month.

Pandey, 26, who has played in just two T20 internationals, was also the first Indian batter to score a century in the Indian Premier League when he was just 19 years of age.

Pick him for the T20s. He is the real deal.

Osman Samiuddin contributed to the talking points.

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