What is going wrong with Litton Kumar Das?
Against Australia in Pune, the right-handed batter looked dejected when he was caught in the deep trying to go after Adam Zampa. It was a soft dismissal after being stranded for a while and it must have reminded him of his last innings at the same venue, when he let go a golden opportunity and perished for 66 while trying to go after Ravindra Jadeja.
In a tournament dominated by openers, Litton has certainly failed to live up to expectations. He has failed to capitalise on his starts; four occasions to be precise from nine games. He got out without reaching double figures against New Zealand and Netherlands, and on both occasions he was out to unforced errors. Against New Zealand, he stepped out against Trent Boult off the first ball and flicked the inswinger straight to the fielder; against Netherlands, he paid the price of playing a reverse sweep against Aryan Dutt and made only three.
He scored 13, 22 and 23 against Afghanistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka respectively. They are probably the only three innings he can claim to be unlucky. He had gotten an inside edge against Fazalhaq Farooqi while Rabada and Madushanka came up with brilliant deliveries to trap him plumb in front.
However, against England, India, Pakistan and Australia, the elegant right-handed batter will have to take all the blame for gifting away his wickets after looking set. He made 76, 66, 45 and 36 respectively.
Among the leading run-scorers, there are five openers in the top ten. Quinton de Kock, Rachin Ravindra, David Warner, Rohit Sharma, David Malan; and all of them reached triple figures in their league phase at least on one occasion. De Kock, Rachin and Warner made four, three and two centuries respectively. The other two scored a century apiece so far in the tournament.
Litton has only himself to blame for not having a bigger tournament. He failed to keep his composure required to make it big and as a result did not live up to the expectation in the ongoing ICC World Cup, making 284 runs at an average of 31.55 with a strike rate of 80.22, which includes two half centuries. But it hardly served the purpose of the team.
There were off-field issues as well considering the team management was upset with him after he wanted to return to Pune from Dhaka as late as November 10, from a short break. He had left for his country from Delhi after their game against Sri Lanka to be with his wife, who is expecting their first child.
Cricbuzz understands that he was asked to join the team by November 9 or else face the consequences. The team management, it’s understood, did not want him to play an international game without any net session.
It was second time during the ongoing tournament that Litton visited Dhaka and it also raised quite a few brows from the board, more so after they were disappointed by his behaviour in Pune for which he had to seek apology.
Without Tamim Iqbal in the side, Bangladesh were hoping that he would be the key figure behind setting the tone for Bangladesh and he certainly missed out despite doing all the hard work on several occasions.
Litton and young Tanzid Tamim on Saturday put up 76 runs in their opening stand before the latter was removed. The onus then was on Litton to make it big, more so after Cummins dropped him at mid-wicket.
He looked set on a batting paradise in Pune before paying the price of going after Zampa in the following over, when he chipped it towards long-on without generating any real power behind the shot and was caught by Labuschagne for 36.
Litton could have tried to go hard against Travis Head instead of Zampa. That would have been more appropriate as he would have been playing with the spin instead of against it. It was not the first time he made the wrong choices as far as picking the bowler was concerned.
Bangladesh’s stand-in skipper Najmul Hossain came to Litton’s rescue in the post-match press conference when his attention was drawn to the opener’s repeated failures to translate his starts into big scores.
“I don’t want to talk about individual players. We didn’t do well as a team. The top-order batters had more opportunities. If we had big scores from the top, we could have been in better positions. We are hopeful they will get big scores in the future,” said Najmul.
Whether Najmul admits or not, Litton looked out of sorts in a World Cup dominated by openers. Perhaps his ability to get the big runs will help the team sooner than later.
