More than a decade since his debut, David Miller is still splitting opinion, but that’s because he isn’t quite what we all want him to be, writes Rohit Sankar.

You hail from the land of Lance Klusener. You hit them a mile with a poker face. You come with a tagline as good as ‘if it’s in the arc, it’s out of the park’. The media and teammates give you a rhyming nickname: ‘Killer Miller’. Don’t get me wrong. There’s no coming back from that. It’s one of those tweets you post that you want to edit, not delete, but you can’t because err, well, you just don’t have that option on Twitter.

To top it, you actually can slay bowling attacks, you know. Look at the 101* off 38 balls against Royal Challengers Bangalore in an incredible run chase in the 2013 IPL, or the fact that you hold the record for the joint-fastest T20I hundred. The thing with that tag, though, is that you are expected to ‘kill’ more often than not, and it’s not something even the best can do. Miller’s done it a few times and not done it a million times. It’s the story of every finisher. Some just do it more often than others and the others just wish to do it more often.

Miller does too. In 2020, Miller told in an interview with ESPNCricinfo that he’s in “awe of MS Dhoni’s run chases”.

“I think we’re all very different in the way we think we play,” he had said. “I absolutely love the way Dhoni goes about his business. Certainly his calmness – you just think he’s always under control. The way he portrays himself, that’s something he’s extremely good at and I do enjoy that about him. I try and give off the same energy”.

Wait, “try and give off the same energy”? As MS Dhoni? You got that wrong, no? Dhoni’s calm, sedate, and zen-like while batting, picking and choosing his prey wisely. But you are ‘Killer Miller’. Compare yourself to Andre Russell or Kieron Pollard maybe. For the world, Miller, accompanied by the right swagger and theme music, walks up ever so often to the mic to rap “if it’s in the V, it’s in the tree. If it’s in the arc, it’s out of the park”.

Here’s the thing though. I hate to break it to you, but Miller likes to sort of soft kill. He really is like Dhoni. There, now that I have said it, it feels lighter, but let me stretch it out for you. Take the run chase against CSK for the Gujarat Titans a few nights back. Miller walked in at 16-3 in the fourth over. He was there till the very end, unbeaten on 94 off 51 balls, spearheading Gujarat’s run chase of 170, reviving them from what looked like a point of no return.

Miller likes staying out till the end, delaying those killer blows for the very end. That’s very MS Dhoni-like. Wait, don’t jump on me yet, I am getting there. Nearly 30 per cent of his ODI innings are unbeaten. Even more than MS Dhoni’s percentage of not-outs. His ODI record is way better than his T20I record, the first sign, if any, that he is no Russell or Pollard. This despite being stereotyped in the ‘Russell’ role in almost every single franchise, with the same expectation in the national team.

Let me throw in a stat that’s pretty certain to stun you, even if you’ve been a Miller advocate. Of the 268 cricketers to play more than 100 men’s ODIs, only two have a batting average of 40 or more and a strike rate of 100 or more – AB de Villiers and David Miller. Not good enough? Add in this. No batter has played more T20Is than Miller by averaging 30 or more and scoring at a rate of 140 or more.

Legend has it that David Miller’s father bought him a golf set when he was two, and he, well, teed off. He still is teeing them off to the trees, but he’s learned to nurdle them as much as mush them. Each of his five ODI tons has come when walking in before the 25th over and taking his time to settle in. Contrary to your archetypal finisher, Miller can wade through difficult overs without getting out and then go for the kill. He’s just not had enough consistent chances in a top-four role to do that more often.

How would he, when the national team had Graeme Smith (later Quinton de Kock), Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers, and JP Duminy in the top five? And that’s the reputation Miller’s struggled to break away from. So, he has embraced it, but now and then when the chance pops up, Miller prefers to bide his time, leash his golf swing and find his happy space.

Since 2019, Miller averages over 50 and strikes at nearly 100 in ODIs. He’s also going big in T20 cricket with an IPL franchise now trusting in him consistently in the XI. He’s still playing most of his matches at No.6, and that’s not ideal, but somewhere some team might just see through his fancy nickname and realise that he can kill it, even if it’s just not in the way everyone imagined it.

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