by Arunabha Sengupta
Chetan Chauhan passed away on 16 Aug 2020.
He played his final Test in New Zealand, 1981.
2084 runs in 40 Tests at 31.57 is not really great reading, and he famously did not get a hundred.
However, he was a gutsy batsman. And as we can see, in the challenging conditions of his final two series, he outperformed the mighty Gavaskar.
Yet, the selectors were too hasty to blood the swashbuckling new talent Krish Srikkanth. Not an overnight success, Srikkanth went on to play 43 Tests scoring 2062 runs at 29.88, the worst record among all Indian opening batsmen with 20 Tests or more.
While Srikkanth found his feet, the selectors fiddled around with a variety of opening batsmen, Arun Lal, Pronab Roy, Ghulam Parkar … even bringing back Anshuman Gaekwad. But Chauhan never got a recall. He lost form in domestic cricket and never played for India again.
However, looking at his last two series, were the selectors a bit too quick in ending his career?
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