All over for the Master Finisher?

What will be doubly sad is that the injury comes at a time when he’s just beginning to find batting form in this series.

He scored the second of his two consecutive half-centuries today, and in typical manner: unfussed and low-key, easing out the runs with the practiced ease of a master pickpocket.

Bevan’s career has been a travesty of sorts. He has scored 6,829 runs in 227 ODIs at an average of 54.63 and a strike rate of 74.37. If aggregate, average, strike rate and the ability to win matches are the criteria, there’s no one in the world to touch Bevan in the ODI format.

Yet the same man averages 29.07 in 18 Tests, surely one of contemporary cricket’s more baffling statistics.

Bevan himself acknowledges this discrepancy, calling it a ‘‘frustrating and depressing’’ fact of life. ‘‘Somehow I’ve never been found suitable for Test cricket’’, he told The Indian Express before the current tour began. ‘‘It’s something I can’t do anything about. In any case, we have always had great Test batsmen, and now have a promising crop of youngsters.’’

So one-day cricket is his meat and drink. ‘‘I enjoy playing one-dayers and I enjoy the pressure that goes with batting in the lower middle-order.

“We all have our roles, and my role is to finish games off. I have done it well, I think.’’

He seemed, even then, to be aware that time was running out for him. ‘‘The retirement age for cricketers is coming down. I don’t have a long time left. Cricketers these days don’t play for as long as they used to. Because what we are trying to do is make athletes and not cricketers. The training is a lot more intensive and the body takes a heavier physical load than before.’’

But Bevan appears to have few regrets. ‘‘I’ve been lucky. The standard of domestic cricket in Australia is extremely high and for a cricketer to make the team extremely tough. To be able to stick around and play for so long despite so many injuries is doubly tough. I’ve given my best and done what’s expected of me but I’ve also been lucky.’’

When he does call it a day — and the fighter in him will insist that it’s later rather than sooner — his lack of top-drawer Test showings will count against him in future evaluation. But to his fans he will remain the greatest finisher — a term coined after he perfected the craft — in modern-day ODI cricket and a major element in the making of the greatest-ever ODI team.