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Murali Vijay now has four Test centuries. His first was in
October, 2010. He made his Test debut way before that in 2008. Gambhir was
unavailable for the 4th Test vs. Australia. (after scoring 206 in
the 3rd )
Since then in over close to six years, Vijay has played 23
Tests. He was on call whenever Gambhir or his sis were getting married or
Sehwag had hair raising duties.
Then the wins dried up, as did the runs off the Delhi
Brothers’ bats, Vijay returned. This time though he scored two big back-to-back
hundreds, 167 and 153. By the third Test, Sehwag exited too.
Vijay added 221 for the first wicket with Dhawan. It’s been
over a year now since that series, and Vijay hasn’t left the opener’s slot.
What he has done though is leave the ball rather well.
In spite of that, in the last 14 innings, he had not scored a century, just
2 50s. His three centuries were scored at home.
By then anyone watching Vijay knew he had
enough patience to watch paint dry and by virtue of that stick it out as an opener.
But could he also score bigs runs overseas, or just Aakash Chopra one
end – 6(42) vs South Africa was very Chopra-school. 39(94) in the same Test, somewhat better, but the score continued to tease.
97(227) in over five hours, India’s new old-style grinding
machine opener had arrived.
And today, 122 (294) in over six and a half hours. Vijay has arrived in
England.
His baggage though is a lot less than it was a year back.
It’s exactly a year back that Vijay played his last ODI. He did
not open, Rohit and Dhawan did. Vijay didn’t even bat. Kohli, Raina and Karthik
did before him.
And though Vijay made the Champions Trophy squad, he didn’t
play a game. Nowadays he doesn’t even make the one day squad.
It must be such a relief for Vijay. To know he’s not in
the reckoning for the World Cup. And he doesn’t have to do a thing to change
that.
He can get back to what he does best, leave ball after ball
after ball. They don’t call him Monk for nothing.
As for Gambhir, suspect he'll only return if Vijay decides to marry.
1 comment:
Nice write-up. Didn't know you guys are keeping it going.
It's good for Vijay that he is left out of ODI scheme of things. He will not fit any of the shorter formats for Indian team. The IPL success he had for a short span was more an anomaly, like the 21 ball 50 by Dravid.
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