What Mohammed Siraj has done with the few ODIs India have given him

The Hindustan Times argues that four ODIs in a year is a strange way to treat Mohammed Siraj with a World Cup coming, and that India's planning looks muddled as a result. The awkward part for Siraj's supporters is what he has done with the games he has been given. In men's ODIs over the last two years he has taken six wickets in seven matches at a bowling average of 45, against 31.34 for all bowlers in that time.

Our ratings follow the same line. They place him 26th of the 50 bowlers on our men's ODI list, about one run a match worse than an average player.

A wicket a match will not do

His return on Saturday was one for 52 from eight overs as West Indies chased down 352. That has become the pattern. In his last ten ODIs he has taken more than one wicket only once, the two for 40 against New Zealand in January.

He has stayed tidy through it. His economy of 5 over these two years is better than the 5.27 that bowlers in men's ODIs have gone at. A fast bowler with a best of six for 21 is picked to take wickets, though, and one a match at an average of 45 leaves too much of the job to everybody else.

The case the selectors still have to answer

This is still the bowler whose career figures read 77 wickets in 50 ODIs at 24.69. His seven matches in two years have come as three against Australia, three against New Zealand and then nothing between January and Saturday. That is no sort of run for a fast bowler to find rhythm in, and it leaves India with a small, scattered sample to judge him on.

India's attack has hardly made him look surplus either. West Indies made 405 for 7 in the second ODI of this series and then chased 352 with five wickets in hand in the third. A side that tops our men's ODI team ratings, with a 72% chance of beating an average side, has also lost to New Zealand and England inside its last ten matches.

The recent record justifies leaving him out of any one game. It does nothing to justify the stop-start handling. India should give him a full series, and if the wickets still come one at a time they can leave him out with a clear conscience.