Rain, No Play

Runako Morton's duck in the second game of the 4 match One-Day series against India continued his run of poor form in the shortened version of the game. Dating back to the semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2006, Morton has strung together scores of 0, 2, 43, 7, 14 n.o., 8 and 0 in his last 7 ODI innings, for an average of 12.33. Not included among these scores was the slowest duck in the history of One-Day cricket made in the DLF Cup final versus Australia last year in Malaysia, when he was mercifully dismissed after labouring through 56 minutes at the crease while facing all of 31 deliveries.

His most recent failure saw him opting not to offer a shot to an off-break from Ramesh Powar, prompting commentator Tony Cozier to declare Morton 'clueless'. Given that Morton's last eight matches have been against the bowling attacks of South Africa, Australia, Pakistan and India, one may feel justified in assessing Morton as being incapable of rising to the occasion against top class attacks. However, this is the same batsman who, in the group stage of the ICC Champions Trophy, scored an unbeaten 90 in a match winning effort against the likes of Australia's Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath. He followed that knock with a steady 45 from 64 deliveries against India.

This much is clear; Morton is inconsistent, and has a well documented checkered history. In July of 2001, he was expelled from the St George's Cricket Academy, then having earned a call to the senior side in February 2002 and being selected for the Champions Trophy in September, Morton pulled out of the squad citing that he had to return to the Caribbean due to the death of his grandmother. Purportedly, Morton's grandmother was, in fact, alive and well. In January 2004, Morton was then arrested following a stabbing incident. In spite of all this, Morton's performance at the domestic level earned him a recall to the senior team in May 2005.

Initially Morton justified the faith shown in him by the selectors with One-Day hundreds against New Zealand and Zimbabwe. Morton has shown glimpses of brilliance and demonstrated that he has the ability to fire on any given day against any opposition. However, at the age of 28 and with a string of failures on the trot, now is the time for him to put some runs on the board in the wake of Kieron Pollard and Wavell Hinds scoring heavily in the Caribbean.

UPDATE: In today's (January 27) third ODI against India, Morton failed again. This time he made 1, dropping his average to 10.71 over his last 8 ODI innings.

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