IPL is building its own legends: CSK's Suresh Raina is one of them

Suresh Raina is a bit of an IPL legend and he’s only 26 – which means he’s going to be around for a while longer and have more chances to add to his legacy. Many might argue that legend, legacy and Suresh Raina don’t quite go very well in the same sentence given his performances for India in Test cricket but then who knows… in the future, the cricketers could very well be judged by their record in the Indian Premier League and that is perhaps when Raina will be known as one of the first few legends of the league. And it won’t be an empty boast. He is the only batsman to score 400+ runs in every season and to do that in a format as difficult as the IPL stands for something. [caption id=“attachment_767239” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Raina has been very consistent for IPL. BCCI[/caption] Suresh Raina’s record in the IPL: 2008 - 421 runs, 2009 - 434, 2010 - 520, 2011 - 438, 2012 - 441, 2013 - 458 runs and counting (2013) It’s the kind of consistency that bigger, better Test players have struggled to achieve in the IPL and Chennai Super Kings certainly value his presence in the field. He can bat aggressively, field superbly and of late, has also started turning his arm over. Frankly, there’s little more that Dhoni can ask of him. Early this season, he seemed out of sorts – in his first five innings, he went past 30 just once. But he’s turned it around with a hundred against the Kings XI and a 99 against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Raina’s innings has no particular format. Hussey works his way through an innings, Chris Gayle takes his time getting set. But with Raina – he could come out and get going right away. But he can also play the innings that slowly gets his team back in the game. Take Wednesday’s game against Hyderabad for example, Raina reached 51 off 36 balls. That’s pretty normal by T20 standards. But in the next 16 balls, he simply destroyed Hyderabad and Ishant Sharma to finish with 99 off 52 balls. It’s this kind of hitting that makes him feared by the opposition; the ability to flip a switch and get on with it. It’s also the kind of ability that has Dhoni saying that Raina can bat higher in the batting line-up when he plays for India in ODIs. After Raina’s unbeaten 89 helped India beat England by five wickets in January, Dhoni said the left-hander has learned the art of finishing matches. “This kind of innings has a lot of value because we have been grooming him. He has learned it [to finish off games], but at the same time, he has to curb his instincts. He’s a naturally aggressive player; he loves to play his strokes, but he has to curb it for the interest of the team. It’ll be good if we can give him some chances to bat slightly up the order,” he said. For CSK, Raina has been batting at number three from the first season – a position in the batting order that allows him to dictate the flow of the game. For India, a majority of his innings have been at number 5 (46 matches, 1459 runs at an average of 38.39) and number 6 (53 matches, 1529 runs @ 38.22) – a position where is often on the lookout for quick runs; the risk is higher almost always. When people mention CSK, they often speak about Dhoni, Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo, R Ashwin and others. But Raina’s performance firmly establishes him as the engine that drives the team forward. Anything less will mean not giving him his due.