Tag Archives: Aakash Chopra
One of the many openers tried by India to balance out the charisma of one Virender Sehwag at the other end, Aakash Chopra was a classical opener: the bait batsman sent into play out the new ball, and dead-bat the shine off it to make life easier for the emperors of batting in the middle-order.
A knee injury kept him out of the side at the end of the 2002/03 season, but Chopra impressed everyone in the brief 2-Test home affair against New Zealand and was picked for the historic tour of Australia in 2003/04 – India’s final frontier. A series remembered more for Dravid’s heroics and Sehwag’s pyrotechnics, Aakash Chopra played the unsung hero of the tour which saw India come as close as they ever have to a Test series win in Australia. Chopra failed to get past 50 in 8 innings, but therein lies the importance of assessing top-order players qualitatively in a world that demands statistics. His primary function was to see off the new ball and build a solid platform worked well with Sehwag, helping him whack the leather off it at the other end, and therefore he was a vital cog in India’s retention of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia in 2003/04.
Unfortunately, the lack of big scores and aggressive shots to back his solid technique, and his apparently one-dimensional game, meant that India would look at more aggressive options such as Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif going forward, and Aakash Chopra became a chronic fringe player in the Indian dressing room. He was made the scapegoat after an unimpressive performance in the home series against Australia, and Gautam Gambhir was picked in his stead. Chopra continued to work on his game, and three years since, he was picked for India’s A tour of South Africa where he scored an unbeaten double century.
