Did Sanjay Manjrekar Take A Dig At Sachin Tendulkar? 'Was Desperate To...'

Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar on Friday (January 9) argued against giving too much importance to runs scored by batters in the top order of an ODI team, calling it ‘easy’ relative to Test cricket. In explaining his point, he seemed to be taking a sly dig at Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, saying how India’s regular openers in ODI were ‘desperate’ to hold onto those spots, while being happy batting at 4-5-6 in Tests.

This was Manjrekar’s second hot-take in two days. On Thursday, he had criticised Virat Kohli for retiring from Tests and choosing the ‘easy’ ODI format, which, according to him, wasn’t taken well by fans.

“A lot of people have asked me why I keep saying ODI cricket is easy for top-order batters,” Manjrekar said in a video

on Instagram, as quoted by Sportskeeda. “Go back a few years in Indian cricket and look at the guys who were opening for India for a long time in 50-over cricket. Those batters were middle-order batters in Test cricket. They were not very keen to open in Test cricket or bat in the top three. They were very happy to play at No. 4, 5, 6.”

From the generation ‘a few years ago’, Tendulkar and Ganguly are two of the three highest run-scorers for India from the opening position. Both hardly opened in Test cricket, with Tendulkar spending a lion’s share of his Test career at number four and Ganguly at five and six.

“But come one day cricket, they were almost desperate to bat in the top three and open,” Manjrekar said. “Therein lies the answer as to why I believe it’s easy for top order batters, because everybody is queuing up to bat in the top three. The first advantage you get when you are opening in 50-overs cricket or batting at No. 3, there’s no four slips and a gully. And you know when a bowler is running in, he’s not really coming in to get you out. He’s just trying to make sure you don’t get 10-15 runs an over.”

India’s second-highest run-scoring opener, Rohit Sharma, also started his Test career in the middle-order but transitioned to the top at the end. Kohli himself batted mostly at number four in Tests, while dominating the number three spot in ODIs.

‘You won’t find a batting great in ODIs’: Manjrekar

Manjrekar argued that those who bat in the ODI top-order can’t be termed ‘great’ and that title should be reserved for the likes of MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, who took on the ‘tougher’ middle-order jobs.

“So if you are a good enough player, you just play out the first 10 to 15 overs. Then the field spreads out and slowly, if you are a good rotator of strike, you get to a 100. The tough place to bat in one-day cricket is where Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, or MS Dhoni would bat, which is 4, 5, 6. Those were the tough positions,” said Manjrekar.

“So, if you are looking for a batting great, you won’t find them in one-day cricket, and especially at number one, two, and three. One day cricket is the last place I would look at to see my batting great of today because there’s just far too much going for people who bat in the top three in one day cricket,” he concluded.