Former Australian chinaman, Brad Hogg reckons that the veteran Indian cricketer, Suresh Raina will not be making international comeback anymore. Justifying his statement, Hogg said that the Indian skipper, Virat Kohli is looking to bring out young cricketers in the team, and also there is no slot available for someone like Raina in the playing eleven. He stated that he doesn’t see the southpaw batting down the order and the top four positions were already filled.
Explaining the same on his Youtube channel, Hogg said, “But if you look at Indian line-up right now, where Virat Kohli wants to take it, he is looking at youngsters at the moment. And Shreyas Iyer has done reasonably well at no. 4 and that is where Raina is going to bat. I don’t see him batting lower down the order. He’s more of the batsman that comes in at no.3 or 4 and bats through the middle overs. I don’t think there is a role for him in Indian cricket.”
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The 49-year-old Australian added that the slight window of opportunity can come for Raina when someone like Shikhar Dhawan is left out of the team. Brad said that if India continues to open in T20Is with Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul, Raina can get to play in the middle-order.
However, Hogg in his closing statement reasserted that he doesn’t see Suresh Raina making an India comeback.
The veteran chinaman said, “The only way he could get a chance to make a comeback in T20 cricket is if they continue to open with KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma and leave Shikhar Dhawan out, so he may have a slight chance there. But I don’t see Raina playing again and that’s a little disappointing to say.”
On the other hand, Suresh Raina is quite hopeful that if he manages to do well in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) he can feature in the T20 World Cup, which has been postponed until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Raina had earlier had said, “My T20 World Cup hopes depend on my performance in the IPL. If I can make my knee strong and have a good IPL, then I know that I have another 2-3 years of cricket left in me. There are two back-to-back T20 World Cups. I have done well in T20 cricket.”
