I believe I will get my due: Robin Uthappa

Robin Uthappa has perhaps left no stone unturned in his attempt to return to national setup. He has the strength of batting at any position to torment the opposition. After a promising start to his international career, Uthappa somehow failed to be consistent. Looking at the prospects of a return, Robin Uthappa is optimistic of a recall. In a recent interview with Cricbuzz, he talked about his plans of making a comeback.

Uthappa has been a juggernaut in the domestic season in the last couple of years. He was 7th in the list of leading run-getters in the Ranji Trophy last year. A year earlier to that, he was the leading run-scorer in the Ranji Trophy. His track record for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL has also been growing from strength to strength. With such consistent performances, he is keen on staging a comeback sometime soon.

Talking about his chances of making a comeback, he feels he has a chance as good as anybody else. He knows it is his duty to play consistently and take his side to victories wherever he plays.

“I feel my chances are as good as anybody else’s but it’s up to the selectors. I’ve been performing consistently over the last few years; I think my job is to make sure that I continue to perform consistently and make sure that these performances are match-winning performances and championship-winning performances,” said Robin Uthappa.

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He believes that consistency is the key and is working hard on it. He is sure that he will get his due sometime soon. He has not given up on his dreams of playing for India yet. He quoted, “That’s what I’m focusing on and I believe I will get my due. I still dream very big and I haven’t let go of any of my dreams. I’m working hard, I’m moving forward and I believe that my time under the sun will come.”

Citing reasons for his inconsistent showdown for the Indian team, Uthappa says that he never batted at the same position for more than 3 matches. His batting position kept shuffling and he couldn’t quite get things right thereafter. “For me, I think when I played in the (Indian) side, I never played in one position for more than three games. I’m certain that if I had played in one position for maybe 10 games or even 5-6 games, I know I would have made a bigger dent than I did when playing in one position for less than three games, three innings. So I think that’s where things went a little awry for me,” cites Uthappa.

Adding a bit more to the topic, he said that even he made comebacks for his domestic team, he succeeded as openers. However, when drafted to the national side, he never played at the same position. “Even when I made comebacks, I scored runs as an opening batsman (for Karnataka) but I always played as a middle-order batsman (with India). I think that’s one of the banes for a person willing to do anything for the country,” he quoted.

He restated that he still feels he is good enough to have his share of success. He has left the matters of selection to the selectors and knows he has no control over it. “Having said that, like I said, I still believe that I will have my time under the sun and I think it’s a matter of time. I need to continue doing what is in my control and leave the rest up to the selectors and god,” he added.

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He was also asked about the pink ball experiments. He said that there are many advantages of playing day night Tests. He further maintained that the disadvantages are also there. He rightly pointed out the issue with the pink balls. He said that the ball stops doing absolutely anything after the first few overs. And this is surely a worrying concern.

“The pros are that it’s a different format, it’s different than normal red-ball cricket and also you sight the ball really well. The con definitely is the ball. If we play with the kind of quality of balls that we played in the Duleep Trophy, I’m certain that we would run out of bowlers and we’d have to play against bowling machines because that ball did nothing after 5-6 overs,” conceded the wicketkeeper-batsman.