Ranji Trophy: Forgotten man Dwaraka Ravi Teja eager to fulfil his potential

“Maybe I was too young then and didn’t understand the magnitude of the opportunity. I was only focused on playing my shots. It’s one of my biggest regrets,” he said. It was a day he had played a rather responsible innings to drag his new team, Andhra, back from the brink in a tight contest against Jammu & Kashmir with a 184-ball 81. A day later, he would walk in to bat with the match poised at an even more critical stage. J&K had collapsed for 111 in their second innings and left Andhra with 191 to chase in 52 overs. Ravi Teja’s entrance at 57/2 had come post an electric start. On his shoulders rested the load of taking them home to their first win of the season.

Till the time he was at the crease, he was in total control and even managed to unleash some of the strokes, that too with the impudence that had originally turned heads in his youth. There were a bunch of slaps through the covers, and a mighty heave down the ground that cleared the ropes. But just when he looked set to take his team home, having reached his second half-century of the match, Ravi Teja played the kind of shot that you would expect from a batsman who’d just realized he had made an appointment to be somewhere else at that same precise moment. For, there could be no other explanation for the right-hander jumping out his crease to the medium-pace of Ram Dayal to try and whip it over mid-wicket—with the leading-edge carrying only as far as Adil Reshi at extra cover.

If Ravi Teja’s 73-ball 50 had enough hints to why he must have been thought of as a potential India player at the start of his career; it was a dismissal that exemplified why those remained merely fleeting thoughts in the minds of those who matter in Indian cricket. But to his credit, he had put Andhra well en route to an oustanding come-from-behind victory.

One batsman having a brain-fade and throwing it away is at least understandable. But how do you explain an entire team collectively losing their head and subsequently the plot? For, that’s what happened with J&K. Returning to Ravi Teja, six of the players who he played with and against on his only U-19 Test tour to New Zealand—Kohli, Rahane, Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Kane Williamson and Corey Anderson—were busy playing in Mohali. He was realistic in his future goals. “I am not looking at India A or anything presently. I just want to win matches for Andhra.”

Brief scores: J& K 334 and 111 ( B Bhatt 5/60) lost to Andhra 255 and 194 for 6 (K S Bharat 31, D B Ravi Teja 50, A Hebbar 27 not out; P Rasool 4 for 55) by four wickets. Points: Andhra 6; J&K 0.