Not thinking of the future, says Wriddhiman Saha

CHANDIGARH: Not many openers have played Aussie paceman Mitchell Starc this season like Wriddhiman Saha did at the PCA stadium in Mohali on Wednesday night. He faced just seven deliveries, including a wide, but the way he went about attacking the best bowler on view in IPL 8, was enough indication that he is the man who will inherit the gloves behind the stumps in the upcoming Test match against Bangladesh and the other series to follow.
Not that there is much doubt that he is the best wicketkeeper in the country today. But, there are a few competitors who can lay claim to the job in the wake of MS Dhoni's retirement from Test cricket. The likes of Dinesh Karthik, Naman Ojha and Sanju Samson can claim to be better batsmen, but this season they have not flourished enough to represent their case strongly. Besides, whenever, Dhoni has been injured or unavailable it has been Saha who has replaced him in the team as the wicketkeeper.
Having played just four Tests in five years, Saha has learned to be patient. When he was asked if he saw himself as a regular wicketkeeper of the Indian Test team now that Dhoni had retired, he said: "I am only thinking about the upcoming game. If my name comes up for selection (for the Test team against Bangladesh) after the end of the IPL, I shall see then. But for the moment, my focus is on the last game," he said after making a quick-fire 31 in a rain-truncated 10 overs-a-side match against Royal Challengers Bangalore and helping KXIP break their seven-match losing streak.
What would have encouraged Saha is that Test captain Virat Kohli has always had words of praise for him. Even on Wednesday night, he praised Saha's effort and lauded KXIP for sending him at the top of the order. "It was a good move to send Saha up the order.That made sense and made all the difference," Kohli said.
In the past too, Kohli has come out in favour of Saha. At the start of the IPL, he had said it will be difficult to replace someone like Dhoni but Saha "deserves" to don the big gloves for the national team for the "next five to six years".
At an event in New Delhi then, Kohli had observed: "If you ask me personally, Saha deserves a go. He has played as replacement and we all know that he is a world class wicketkeeper. He is 30 now and he also realises that he needs a longer rope. I am excited about him and believe that he deserves to be India's keeper for next 5-6 years." The quickfire 31-run innings has reinforced this claim.
On his part Saha nonchalantly said of the innings: "Our plan was to score as many runs in the three-over powerplay .Our target was to score plenty of runs in that period since we had the likes of Glenn Maxwell, George Bailey and David Miller to follow," he said.