The Independent Voice of West Indies Cricket

Sarwan's career by the numbers

Thu, Sep 22, '16

 

Ramnaresh Sarwan

When Ramnaresh Sarwan scored an unbeaten 84 on Test debut against a Pakistan attack that included Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq, many experts were moved to suggest that he would be the next big thing in West Indies batting; Ted Dexter predicted a Test average of more than 50. Over a career that lasted over a decade, Sarwan did extremely well for himself, scoring nearly 12,000 international runs with 20 hundreds, but it is impossible to escape the feeling that West Indies didn't get the full value of Sarwan's capabilities. Especially as a Test batsman, where he finished with a career average of 40.01, a good 20% short of where Dexter predicted he would end up.

As a Test batsman Sarwan clearly had his moments: his fourth-innings 105 in Antigua helped chase down a record target of 418; his 291 against England in 2009 remains the seventh-highest Test score by a West Indian, and equals Viv Richards' highest as well; in the same series he also made two other hundreds - 107 in a win in Kingston, and 106 in Antigua - becoming only the fourth West Indies batsman since 1980 to score three hundreds in a Test series.

read more at ESPNcricinfo