Ramesh Powar

A stocky offspinner who is more than handy with the bat, Ramesh Powar has been a consistent performer in domestic cricket for the last four seasons, and was crucial to Mumbai's Ranji Trophy success in the 2002-03 season. His 20 wickets with his flighted stuff was useful enough, but even more crucial was the runs he contributed. He never batted higher than No. 7 - sometimes going in as low as No. 10 - but ended up with the second-highest aggregate for Mumbai in the tournament, scoring 418 runs at more than 46, with most of those runs coming when his team was in strife. His domestic exploits soon caught the selectors' notice, and he made to the Indian squad for the tour to Pakistan. Both his offspin and his batting stood the test in the couple of one-day internationals he played, but even more impressive was his combative attitude, as he bravely tossed the ball up on batting shirtfronts, and didn't bat an eyelid while striking some lusty blows against the pace of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami. An ideal bits-and-pieces player, Powar returned to the one-day side early in 2006, now armed with a new delivery - a drifter - which helped him to 63 domestic wickets in 2005-06, after 54 the previous season. Again he impressed with both bat and ball, although some critics made disparaging remarks about his waistline, causing him to tempt fate: "I've never missed a game owing to fitness problems." Almost inevitably, he then twisted an ankle and missed the first two ODIs in the West Indies in June 2006.
S Rajesh July 2006