India’s Test wicketkeeper, Wriddhiman Saha has had to wait in the wings for years, his career playing out in the shadow of former captain MS Dhoni. But patience comes naturally to Saha, and it is a virtue now paying him rich dividends.
After being picked up by Kings XI Punjab in the 2014 IPL auctions, Saha showed the world what he is capable of with the bat, culminating in an unbeaten hundred in the finals.
Later that year, after Dhoni’s retirement from Test cricket, Saha took over as India’s first choice keeper in whites and impressed with his glove-work and handy contributions down the order.
He has since become part of the Kings XI Punjab nucleus and is a vital cog in the India setup thanks largely to his safe pair of hands behind the stumps. In fact, captain Virat Kohli has unequivocally backed the keeper from Bengal, calling him good enough to represent the country consistently for a long time to come.
Here, Saha speaks exclusively to Sport360.com about the IPL season just gone and his plans for the immediate future.
Is Saha India’s most underrated cricketer?
Your recent innings against Bangalore was reminiscent of the 2014 IPL final, how do you approach these knocks?
It was a short innings. The objective was to reach the D/L target within five overs in case the rain returned again. Two/three deliveries connected well right at the start of the innings and I carried on from there. I didn’t think anything more than that.
You got out to a dubious decision, did you rue that call?
See, the decisions aren’t in our hands – our job is to just go and play. Whatever decisions the on-field or third umpires take are final and aren’t reverted. So, as a player, you have to accept it as a part of the game and move on. Ruing it won’t help.
Kings XI have been languishing at the bottom of the IPL for two years now, how disappointing has that been?
If you compare this season with last year, we played better. Better because we lost around four close games that could have made a lot of difference later on. Had we even won say three out of those four games, we wouldn’t have been placed where we are currently.
These sort of close games usually get swayed within an over or two – batsmen being unable to connect, bowlers being unable to control the runs. As a team we were able to execute our plans in such situations in 2014, something we failed to do in the following seasons.
You were dropped for a couple of games and then returned with a bang, what did you work on while you were away?
I didn’t do anything exceptional when I was dropped, just the normal routine. Also, the management was using those games to test the team combination with a different keeper, so had we won those games it would have been good for the team.
You said it somewhere that your worked with Virender Sehwag during that time to get back in touch, is that true?
It’s not just Viru bhai in specific, I talk to everyone and take inputs from them, be it Sanjay bhai [Sanjay Bangar] or my teammates. It’s just that the media only spoke of my interactions with Viru bhai and not the others. I take help from everyone.
This season you have performed as well as Sanju Samson and Dinesh Karthik when it comes to runs scored and strike-rate. Is it unfair that people aren’t talking about you as much?
I don’t know much about the numbers as I watch them play on television. Aggregates and all I am getting to know from you only. I don’t think too much about whether it’s fair or not, my ultimate objective is to play for my team and contribute to its cause and that’s something I have been doing all this while.
India is going to be playing a lot of Tests over the next year or so, how are you preparing yourself?
First things first, we need to realise that these Tests you are talking about aren’t going to happen over the next week or so. That’s why it’s needless to think too much about something so distant in the future. I concentrate only on the games in hand as things that will happen later on can be taken care of then. Jab aayega tab dekha jayega [will see when it comes].
Lastly, you first got noticed as a player while playing an innings against Kings XI Punjab. Six years later, you got noticed again while playing for them – how has your journey been?
It’s been a great journey. After joining the Kings XI Punjab, I have consistently got chances to prove myself, especially getting to bat at good positions where I can impact my team’s performance. The relationship with my teammates and the management has been wonderful. The teammates I have obviously known for a while, even outside the IPL setup, but playing for the Punjab side has given my career a huge boost.
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