Parthiv must improve batting to cement his place: Farokh Engineer

Mumbai: Former India wicket-keeper Farokh Engineer believes that it will be a sad moment for Parthiv Patel to vacate his slot once Mahendra Singh Dhoni recovers from muscle spasm. 

Team India captain MS Dhoni suffered back spasm and didn't participate in net practice on Monday and Tuesday. It is felt that he may have developed this problem during gym and other practice sessions and as a back up, Parthiv is called up. 

The 78-year-old Engineer, who now resides in England, said, "It will be a very interesting situation if Parthiv grabs this opportunity and performs exceedingly well in the Asia Cup but then again he will have to vacate his place from the team for Dhoni." 

"The game of cricket has 4-5 bowlers, all-rounders and 4-5 batsmen but unfortunately no team can afford the luxury of two specialist wicketkeepers." 

"Parthiv is a good wicket-keeper, a decent boy. I like his attitude. But he has to improve his batting to cement his place in the side." 

"If the other wicketkeeper is really outstanding then only he can be there in the side with captain Dhoni," Engineer added. 

For the record, Team India has played two wicketkeepers in the final eleven in number of matches. 

"Dinesh Karthik and MS Dhoni have played 63 international matches (Tests, ODIs' and T20s') together," said Bharath Seervi, the cricket statistician at ‘ESPNcricinfo’. 

"Budhi Kundran and Farokh Engineer, the two specialist wicketkeepers played three Tests together,” the statistician added.

"Parthiv's performance in domestic matches during last year is exceptionally good and we always had anticipated his recall as a back up player," said Parthiv’s father.