Manoj Tiwary Flop XIManoj Tiwary Flop XI

Manoj Tiwary has been a very unfortunate man in Indian cricket. A right-handed batsman from Bengal, known for his aggression, he impressed the selectors with 796 runs at 99.50 in the 2006-07 Ranji Trophy. He was picked up for India touring Bangladesh. With a sheer stroke of bad luck on match eve he injured his shoulder severely during fielding practice and could not debut there. In 2008 he finally got to play ODI for India in Brisbane but was faced with the task of facing an in-form and searing Brett Lee. He made 2 bowled by Lee and thus failed. But such was Lee’s form, he got 4 more wickets ( 5wickets in total) in that match of – Sachin Tendulkar (10), Rohit Sharma (29), MS Dhoni (37) and Harbhajan Singh (27).

Virendera Sehwag scored 6 and Robin Uthappa scored 5 in that game.

To play his next international match, Manoj had to wait for more than three years. This time he was asked to open the innings because to replace an underperforming opener. He again scored 2 and thus failed again.

But Manoj proved his worth and cricketing skills when scored a match-winning unbeaten 104 against West Indies in December 2011 in Chennai. Sadly he was subsequently dropped from the team and did not play 8 months. He was selected to play 2 ODIs against Sri Lanka when India was touring Sri Lank in August 2012 for two ODIs. He scored 21 and 65. He was again sidelined – unexplained. The last time he played for India was against Zimbabwe in 2015 when he played in 3 matches scoring a total of 34 runs with 22 being his highest.

Major teams Manoj has played for are: India, Abahani Limited, Bengal, Bengal Under-19s, Delhi Daredevils, India A, India Green, India Under-19s, Kings XI Punjab, Kolkata Knight Riders, Rising Pune Supergiant.

Playing for Bengal in a Ranji match (December 25-28 2019) against Andhra Manoj was the second best scorer after the man of the match Abhishek Raman who scored 112 runs of 257 balls. With a much better strike rate Manoj scored 46 runs of only 78 balls.

All of the above facts and performances of Manoj Tiwary point to more of a bad luck than bad player. No wonder then his wife Sumita Roy lashed out when he was labelled a ‘flop cricketer’.

Susmita Roy has not taken kindly to a fan page on Instagram, that named her husband in a list of India’s Flop XI. Susmita gave a piece of her mind to the owner of the account titled ‘IPL Freak’.

“Who so ever created dis profile How dare u bloody dragged my husband’s name in it. U better do ur bloody facts check. Do something in ur s*** ugly life rather dan posting s*** about people. Go n get a life,” Susmita responded on the post.

By Raj