Time for Unmukt Chand to deliver

Four years ago, Unmukt Chand was in 11th grade in a Delhi school when he showed maturity beyond his years in tackling the seasoned Sanjay Bangar and JP Yadav on a seaming Roshanara track. Although Bangar and Yadav were no Stuart Broad or James Anderson, being veterans of first-class cricket, they knew how to pick up wickets. But Chand still managed a score of 151 in a team total of 295, not bad at all give the ball was also swinging.

With that innings, Chand had marked himself as one of the talented young batsmen. There was a flow to his batting that made him exciting to watch. Then the 2012 Under-19 World Cup happened, and Chand, who led India to victory, became the next big thing in Indian cricket.

But four years later, there are fears as to whether Chand, now 21, is stagnating. His recent run suggests as much; big scores are few and far between, and the indiscreet shot selection time and again is not doing his - or his team's - confidence any good.

Realistically speaking, he was not in contention for a place in India's 15-member World Cup squad but not being in the 30-member probables list either - and quite rightly so - is an indication that he needs to have a rethink about his game.

He played in three warm-up games against the visiting West Indies and Sri Lanka and although those matches didn't have List-A status, Chand helped himself to a century and two fifties. But then came a sequence of low scores in the domestic one-dayers - 1, 19 , 11, 3, 2, 6 and 6, making it 48 runs in seven matches.

The last of those innings was in the Deodhar Trophy, which means that he was selected in North Zone after scoring 42 in six Vijay Hazare innings for Delhi. Those numbers do not merit selection in the zonal team purely from a statistical point of view, but Vikram Rathour probably picked him on talent alone. He was given an opportunity to prove himself, but how he wasted it; a slash to third man, and gone.

If one looks at his first-class average of 35.77 in 32 matches, it's evident that the selectors think him worthy of a long run in teams like India A or India Under-23s despite a mediocre record in past three Ranji seasons. He scored 268 runs in six matches in the last Ranji season, and was dropped from playing XI in last group game against Karnataka. A season before that fetched him 445 runs in eight matches and prior to that it was 338 runs. For someone who wants to play at the next level, these are not great numbers.

His approach in crunch situations can be questioned. Last season, on a green top at Roshanara, he did all hard work to reach 50 before throwing it away against Punjab, when he had all the time in the world to consolidate. In this season's first Ranji game, he played some flowing drives to reach 28 in no time as Gautam Gambhir seemed to be struggling at the other end. Then he thought of pulling Sudeep Tyagi and was caught at mid-on. Gambhir scrapped and carried on to score 147.

Yes, after 56 Test matches, Gambhir has loads of experience, but having batted with him for three seasons, Chand could learn a lot more from his captain about grinding it out.

In the second innings, Delhi needed just 16 to win by 10 wickets and get a bonus point, but Chand was bowled by a seamer, his off-stump going for a walk. Delhi missed the bonus point, and one can't guarantee that that won't prove costly in a marathon tournament like the Ranji Trophy.

Maybe his poor form is all in the mind for Chand, but he certainly needs someone to speak to him about it, be it Virender Sehwag, Gambhir or Ricky Ponting - in the Mumbai Indians dressing room. He needs to convert those pretty 30s and 40s before he starts falling off selectors' radar.