Suresh Raina has had a chequered relationship with World Cups. In 2007, then coach Greg Chappell was prepared to go to war with the Indian cricket establishment for his exclusion. Then in 2011, he was warming the bench till he was unleashed in the final league game against West Indies. Thereafter he made an instant impact in the quarter-final against Australia and semi-final against Pakistan with sparkling cameos. (Full Coverage| Venues | Fixtures) The lead-up to the World Cup in 2015 had not been particularly exciting too. In fact the last two years have been bit of a trial for Raina, inspite of decent returns with the bat. Since January 2013, Raina has played 55 ODIs scoring a total of 1418 runs. He has hit one hundred and 10 half-centuries in this period. What is very interesting is that in this period his average shoots up to 36.35, better than his career average of 35.71. And what makes it even better is the fact that in this period his strike rate rises to 96.72, shade better than a career strike rate of 93.38. READ: Learnt to play free cricket from Yuvraj and Dhoni, says Raina Yet, in many ways Raina has been flying under the radar. His difficult phase came last year when he was first dropped from the ODI playing XI in New Zealand after scoring 84 runs in the first three games. India lost four of the five ODIs in the series, with one being tied. The only two batsmen from India to make an impact were captain MS Dhoni with 272 runs from five matches and his deputy Virat Kohli with 291 runs. Raina had paid the price in many ways for not stepping up. He was then dropped from the squad that played the Asia Cup in March 2014. He then made a comeback post the IPL for a three-match ODI series in Bangladesh as the captain in what was at best a second string side. In England last year he scored his only hundred of the last two years. Then in Australia he made a return to Test cricket with a duck in either innings. He had scores of 51, 1, 1 in the ODI tri-series before the World Cup started, but then he blasted his way to 74 off 56 balls with five boundaries and three sixes in the opening match of the World Cup 2015 against Pakistan. That set the momentum for India's impressive total of 300 for seven. Skipper Dhoni, forever a Raina fan, was naturally thrilled with his performance. "I think the role that's assigned to him (Raina), I think in this game he did it perfectly well. He was provided with a platform where he could go in and be a bit more expressive," praised Dhoni. Raina was helped by some unimaginative captaincy of Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq who let him settle down against the spinners. Raina bided his time well and launched an assault well. "What we really liked was he took a few deliveries initially and then went on to play the big shots. In fact he was more calculated in his innings, and he picked his areas where he wanted to hit," said Dhoni. Raina was severe on the leg-spin pair of Shahid Afridi and Yasir Shah. He knocked off 29 runs off 20 balls from the leg-spin duo. That created pressure in the middle overs on Misbah and his team. "He read the bowlers well as to where they wanted to bowl. He put pressure, and that's what it's all about. If you can put pressure on the bowlers, you'll push them to commit more mistakes of bowling where they don't want to bowl, so overall, including the other batsmen, I think his innings was also special," concluded Dhoni.
