Did We All Misjudge Sarwan?

When Ramnaresh Sarwan made his test debut in 1999 he was seen as a young talented batsman perfectly suited for test cricket. It was Common to hear it being said that the young man had a lot of talent but lacked the stamina, power and aggression to be an effective one day player.

Were they ever wrong. Sarwan now has the second best ODI average of any player ever at 51.04, behind Micheal Bevan of Australia.

His ODI numbers are even better than Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar or Viv Richards and has been achieved at a respectable stike rate and for the most part with good clean cricket stokes.

It often seems that sarwan is on a personal mission to dispell the myth that one day cricket is a sloggers game. And if his recent form is any thing to go by the World Cup could be his ultimate his coming out party.

He now has an average of 82.62 for the 02/03 season.

You can see why I believe there may be more to this young man them we all originally thought. Like it or not, ODIs are a big part of the future of world cricket. If you desire to be the best you have to be adaptable enough to show a mastery of both forms of the game. Sarwan seems to be well on his way toward this.

However, it's stil amazing to me that he is still rated outside the world's top 20 among all ODI batsmen.