Birthday special: Shai Hope – One of the most talented batsmen of the current generation

Over the years, the West Indies cricket team has lost its glory and domination especially in Tests and ODIs. In such times, the young wicketkeeper-batsman hailing from Barbados, Shai Diego Hope has emerged as sunlight to the darkness for them. The batter can be considered as one of the finest talents of this century because of the uncommon orthodox style he has as opposed to the West Indies players.

Shai is a technically sound batsman and a decent wicketkeeper. It is generally observed that the West Indies team is filled with hard-hitters and can give nightmares to any opposition on their day. However, what many of them lack is consistency and stability. This is when the role of Hope becomes important in the Caribbean team as he doesn’t believe in power-hitting and instead relies on his timing and placement to torment the bowlers. The right-hander has the temperament to stay at the crease for long and is known for playing an anchoring role for his team.

A maiden Test hundred for Shai Hope.

Batted.#ENGvWI pic.twitter.com/UH7C4zE5EV

— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) August 26, 2017

The presence of Hope on the other side also helps other batters to play their natural game and start hitting aggressive shots from the very first ball as they don’t have to worry about the wickets or find ways of defending.

Within a short period of his debut in 2015 against England, the Barbados batsman has reached a spot to be compared with the legends of Windies with his highly rated techniques and performances. The 27-year-old has emerged as a Knight in shining armour for West Indies cricket with his capabilities of running the game in the Tests and ODIs, the two formats where they are losing their grip.

The 27-year-old has been phenomenal in One Day Internationals with 3,289 runs under his belt in 73 innings at an average of 52.39. Shai also has 17 half-centuries and 9 centuries to his name. The Barbados batsman is the fastest Non-Asian batsman to score 1000 runs in Asia. He loves to bat on Asian pitches and this can be deduced from the fact that he has the whopping average of 112.36 in ODIs in Asia. Out of his 17 innings in the Asian subcontinent, Shai Hope has six centuries and five half-centuries to his name. Out of the six centuries, three came in India, two in Bangladesh, and one in Sri Lanka.

Along with that, the right-hander became the second-fastest in ODIs to reach the 3000-run mark, taking only 67 matches while he is the fastest West Indian to reach 3000 ODI runs surpassing the great Vivian Richards’ achievement of 3K runs in 69 games.

Unlike ODI format, Hope’s statistics in the longest format of the game haven’t been impressive enough, however, with the way the batsman paces his innings, he is all set to become the next big thing in the Test format. In 34 Test innings, Hope has collected 1603 runs at an average of 26.28 including five fifties and 2 hundreds.

The young rookie took two years to smash his maiden ton in Tests but the way he brought in those two centuries, showed his character and class as a batsman. Hope scored two stunning back-to-back hundreds in two innings of the same Test match against England in 2017 in Leeds to lift his team from a downfall. The heroics of the Barbados-born ensured that Windies registered a Test victory on England soil after 17 years.

Over the years, Shai Hope has emerged as a promising batsman and his technical influence can help him grow leaps and bounds in the cricket fraternity.