A new, improved Marlon Samuels?

When Marlon Samuels made his international debut in the 2000-01 season, many pundits of the game suggested that West Indies had found their next batting superstar. In only his second Test - the Boxing Day match in Melbourne in 2000 - he scored 60 not out and 46, out of team totals of 165 and 109. In an otherwise utterly dismal game for West Indies, Samuels, then a month short of his 20th birthday, showed poise and technical skill that eluded far more experienced batsmen in the line-up, including Brian Lara, which pointed to a bright and long international career.

Almost 16 years later, it is fair to say that the career has been long, as Samuels continues to be a mainstay in the West Indies middle order, but the numbers clearly show it hasn't been as bright as the early signs indicated.

His Test average, after 64 matches, is 33.53, fifth lowest out of 51 batsmen who have played at least 100 innings in the top seven positions since 2000. Of the four players with a poorer average, three - Denesh Ramdin, Mark Boucher and Andrew Flintoff - contribute significantly in an area other than batting, and aren't in the team as specialist batsmen. Samuels' overall ODI average of 34.64 after 172 innings is underwhelming too.

However, in the last three years, Samuels has shown some of the consistency in ODIs that has eluded him through most of his international career. In his last 33 ODI innings, extending all the way to mid-July 2013, he has averaged 53.64, which is a whopping 78% better than his average till that point (30.13). He has scored more hundreds in these 33 innings than he had in his previous 139 innings.

The golden run started with the home series against Pakistan in 2013, when he scored 243 runs in five innings, including an unbeaten 106. Since then, his longest stretch without a century has been seven innings, and in the ongoing Tri-Nation Series against Australia and South Africa, he has notched up two 90-plus scores in five innings. In the 23 ODI innings prior to the start of this golden run, he only managed 583 runs at 27.76, which shows there was nothing to suggest he would break into such a prolific run thereafter.

Samuels' ODI form over the last three years makes him one of the most prolific batsmen in the format over this period. Among the 45 batsmen with at least 1000 runs during this period, only six have a higher average. Samuels' average of 53.64 is higher than those of David Warner, Steven Smith, MS Dhoni, Hashim Amla and Martin Guptill. However, Samuels has played only 33 innings during this period, the fewest among those in the top ten, which is partially a function of West Indies playing only 42 games in these three years, while the other top teams have all played more than 60.

Samuels' latest innings - 125 against Australia in Barbados - took him past the 5000-run mark in ODIs, making him only the tenth West Indies batsman in the club. His recent run has lifted his career average from 30.13 to 34.64, but that is still ninth among the ten West Indians in the 5000 club. Only Richie Richardson, with an average of 33.41, has done worse than Samuels.

However, Richardson played in an earlier era, when an ODI average in the mid-30s was very respectable. Of the 21 batsmen who scored 5000-plus ODI runs between 1983 and 1999, eight averaged below 35 (38%); since 2000, that percentage has dropped to 21% (nine out of 43). Among these 43 batsmen with 5000-plus ODI runs since 2000, only six have a lower average than Samuels' 34.64 - the most prominent among them is Mahela Jayawardene's average of 34.32.

Of the 172 innings that Samuels has batted in ODIs, 76 have been at No. 4, which is almost twice the number he has batted at any other position - his next highest is 39, at No. 3. At No. 4, Samuels has scored 2686 runs at an average of 39.50; among all West Indian batsmen, only Viv Richards has scored more runs at that position - 3373 at 48.88. Samuels' six ODI hundreds at that slot is already the most by a West Indian, going past Richards' five. Lara averaged only 33.73 from 82 innings at that slot, while Carl Hooper and Ramnaresh Sarwan are the only other West Indians with 2000-plus runs at that position. Given that he is only 687 runs behind Richards' aggregate, Samuels could well go past that mark very soon if he continues with this golden run.

While Samuels is on this superb run in ODIs, his overall numbers in this format, as also in Tests, need to improve dramatically if he is to be counted among West Indies' top few batsmen. In these last three years, while his ODI average has lifted to beyond 50, his Test average remains poor at 25.14. In his last nine innings, he has scored 65 runs at an average of 7.22. Those are hardly the numbers that befit West Indies' senior-most batsman and the mainstay of their middle order.