India finds a hero in Raina

By John Cheeran
After losing five wickets for 92 runs by the 25th over, few sides successfully complete their chase of a total such as 227 for a win.
India did just that on Friday against England, for their 14th consecutive one-day win while chasing.
There were enough reasons for skipper Rahul Dravid to get worried after he himself got the raw end of the stick, after ran out by Paul Collingwood.
Dravid, however, can relax a bit about the future now with 19-year-old Suresh Raina emerging a match-winner in Faridabad.
There was no doubt about Raina's potential and he had played his part in some ofthe rousing wins in the past against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
But today Raina rebuilt the Indian innings from debris and finished the job with a cool head and admirable flourish.
With this knock Raina has cemented his place in the one-day side, and there by firming up those options for World Cup before skipper Dravid and coach Greg Chappell.
It is harrowing to watch when you lose your wickets in the manner that India lost them today against England.
Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, though avoided the early meltdown, disappointed again by throwing away their wickets, playing rash shots. Both of them wasted glorious opportunities to salvage themselves, if not anything else.
For the first time in recent times Dravid failed to flourish in a crisis, but his run out was tragic to say the least.
The brigther side of Friday's crash was that it gave Raina the perfect chance to parade his batting skills. The statistic is incredibale that the unbeaten 81 in Faridabad is Raina's first one-day international half-century, for today he played not as a teenager but as a seasoned campaigner who knows when to lash out and when to rein himself in adversity.
His innings had its moment of uncertainty but it was a mature effort, not reckless batting.
Raina has big shots, as he showed in the latter part of his innings, but he has the nous to pierce the field and rotate the strike to frustrate the bowlers.
A composed batsman that he is, Raina, in the one-days to come will be both a nourisher of India's fortunes and destroyer of bowling attacks.
In Raina, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Irfan Pathan India can maximise their potential in the one-day format but India can win consistently only when the top order justifies their fat pay package from the Board of Control for Cricket in India.