How many of you watch domestic Indian cricket? Are you aware of the bowling standards there. How do you think Jadeja scores triple hundreds? These Jiwanjot's and Chands may turn out to be the next Gavaskars and Sehwags but what evidence is there of them being good enough to replace some one who, poor though his recent form has been, has just scored his second Test century against Australia. Murali Vijay has been a terrible disappointment for he was very promising but today he came good. How can we just get up and say he should be dropped. Who says stuff like that except those who have just made up their minds for or against someone.
On top of that Murali Vijay IS facing the axe so that pressure is real. If Sachin can have the pressure of his 100th 100 for two yers, why not a youngster facing oblivion which one more failure might have meant.
Why not see his batting from that context - his very existence on the Indian cricket firmament when he came into bat this innings and then rate his batting.
By the way, I know a little bit about cricket and cricket technique. I am afraid I did not notice any serious flaws in both these guys today. Indian batsmen, particularly the younger lot are pretty bad against the quiclker, stuff and lateral movement from the fast bowlers. These two showed better technique than most Indian youngsters have shown for quite some time now.
I am more worried about what happened to Murali Vijay. This boy was good. Difficult to say what happened to him. I liked him in his first three test innings. The 33 and 41 on debut against Lee Johnson and Watson. He and Sehwag put on 98 and 116 in the two innings and then in his next test innings, in December 2009, he scored 87 against Srilanka in a 221 run partnership with Sehwag and India scored over 700 runs on a perfect wicket and won by an innings.
Then came IPL 2010 and Murali Vijay reinvented himself. His 458 runs came at 157 per hundred balls and he hit 26 sixes in the 15 games he played. I feel India lost Murali Vijay to IPL 2010. His game changed. In 2009 he had scored his 60 IPL runs at under 90 per 100 balls. Now we were seeing one of the cleanest sixer hitters in India.
Only one Indian cricketer hit more sixes and scored at a faster strike rate than Murali Vijay in that year's IPL and he according to me is another tragedy amongst young Indian talents. His name - Robin Uthappa.
I do not know what will happen with Murali Vijay after this test. Maybe he will again go back to scoring the wayward and low scores he has given over the last couple of years. But then again we have to wit and see. one can only hope that this innings will make Murali realise that the two hours he spent in the morning eschewing all stroke play and seeing off Siddle and Pattinson was wahat he needs to learn to do more often at the highest level and if he manages to learn those lessons the runs of the late afternoon will come back for his talent and stroke play are not in doubt.
But we have to wait and watch.
In the meanwhile the least we can do for our young cricketer is to hope and pray for better sense and better council from seniors. To abuse him and his technique is to take the short cut which the selectors could have taken by dropping him after the Chennai test. Thank God they did not and lets hope the young man pays back with gratitude.
Don't think anyone said he should have been dropped. But he shouldn't have been selected in the first place for the last series. If you are saying the likes of Jiwanjot and Chand making runs doesn't show their worth in domestic cricket, then how does Vijay averaging a meagre 20 something deserve selection ?
He was selected ahead of other options for the Irani trophy, where he tonned up somehow due to 4 lucky reprieves on a flat wicket against Pub attack. That brought him back into the team. I watched whole of that match and Jaffer overshadowed both him and Dhawan easily against a much much better attack which ROI possessed. Rahane more or less was similar before getting a poo decision.
And Robin Uthappa and Vijay were never ruined as such because of IPL or being aggressive. They never had great defensive techniques to begin with. Uthappa was overrated because he could hit a six and Vijay because he could dominate any bowler when conditions suited him.
Vijay like Raina can succeed in India or favorable conditions abroad no problems one out of 4/5 occasions and so can Jiwanjot's/Mukund/Jaffer's, but the question is can they do it outside their comfort zones and consistently ? There's only 1 way to know, by trying them out as atleast in domestic cricket they have showed decent temperament and technique, but Vijay keeps getting recalled without warranting it like Harbhajan.
What did say a Mukund do to not deserve a go on home conditions ? He was dropped based on 1/2 test in England in a team that was shattered anyway after outperforming Vijay in Domestic cricket/A tours and also in the West Indies in a low scoring series. Vijay is in the team ahead of him based on his attractiveness in the IPL. The same IPL you are blaming.
I am sure he will ton up given 10 Test matches at home once too.
Badrinath will probably do it 2 or 3 times if he wasn't dropped for scoring a 50 against a Red Hot Steyn in a collapsing team and not being attractive enough.
Anyways, I always knew Vijay was capable of this. That was never a issue. So can't say he has improved until he does something else outside his comfort zone. As Social said his technique still doesn't seem the best defensively to me, but we'll have to agree to disagree on it right now. It's important to see this very good innings in context, that is it.
