It was with great hope the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) brought in the experienced Robin Uthappa as captain of the state team in shorter formats this season. The KCA and head coach Dav Whatmore had in mind primarily two objectives when they roped in Uthappa in place of K B Arun Karthik to join Jalaj Saxena as their outstation professional. One was to make use of Uthappa's vast experience to guide Kerala to the knockout phase of the shorter versions of the game and the other was to bank on him to score heavily at the top of the order.

However, the early signs have not been that encouraging to say the least. Kerala failed to qualify for the knockout stage of the National One-Day championship for the Vijay Hazare Trophy and to make matters worse Uthappa came a cropper with the bat. The India discard could manage only 112 runs from eight innings at a lowly average of 14, with 43 against Mumbai being his highest score. Uthappa in his desperation to succeed moved himself around the batting order. The former Karnataka star batted at No. 4 and No. 3 before promoting himself to open with Vishnu Vinod towards the end of Kerala's group assignments. He was even dismissed for obstructing the field in the game against Goa.

Uthappa, Vishnu, Sanju Samson, Sachin Baby, Mohammed Azharuddeen and Sandeep Warrier were the six players to feature in all eight games for Kerala. Opener Vishnu, who smashed three hundreds, was the standout player for Kerala, while Sanju and Sachin too pulled their weight. The left-handed Sachin, who was removed as captain, responded by aggregating 332 runs at a healthy average of 41.5. He also scored one hundred and a fifty.

Harsh call

It is to be noted that Sachin had led Kerala to a maiden Ranji Trophy quarterfinals berth in 2017-18 and bettered it by taking them to semifinals last season. A revolt by the players demanding the ouster of Sachin as captain before the start of last season too may have forced the KCA to opt for Uthappa as captain this time around at least for the limited-over versions.

“To be fair to Uthappa, it takes time to gel with a new environment and dressing room. The same goes for a captain-coach combination as well. I am hopeful that Uthappa will get going in the forthcoming (Syed) Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 competition,” former Kerala Ranji coach P Balachandran told Onmanorama.

The Mushtaq Ali Trophy group matches begin at Thiruvananthapuram on November 8. Kerala are placed along with Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Manipur and Tripura.

Uthappa missed the last domestic season with an injury and was a pale shadow of his former self for Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2019. It will be an understatement to say that Uthappa, who will turn 34 on November 11, needs to score big for another poor tournament will make it nearly impossible for the KCA top brass and Whatmore to overlook Sachin as captain for the Ranji Trophy.

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