Vijay, you need to improve

[PlanetCricket]

Article by Anand Singh -

127 in just 56 balls - one of the best innings in IPL which was scored by India’s newest talent Murali Vijay from Chennai Super Kings which also lead them to easy win against Rajasthan Royals. His name was all over the blogs, newspapers and televisions. People started calling him to be “India’s upcoming superstar” and also compared him to openers like Sehwag.

He was a luck guy who got a golden chance to play in ICC T20 World Cup 2010 from India when Sehwag was declared unfit. In the first match against Afghanistan, he opened the batting for India and made his International T20 debut. First ball, four! “Here comes the big talent” “What a shot man!” “Wow”. Indians cheered everywhere. Vijay scored 48 runs in the first match and impressed everyone. People thought that they finally have got a replacement for Sehwag.



Second match, out! “He is out on first ball!” Was that expected from him? Okay no problems, sometimes that happens. Third match, he played just 7 deliveries in which he wasted 5 and scored just 2 runs. In his fourth match, he scored just 7 runs and finally changed the minds of Indians.

He was able to score only 57 runs in 4 matches in the tournament with an average of 14.25. The most amazing thing is that 48 runs were scored against a team who just managed to qualify to the World Cup.

The simple logic behind this is, Indian pitches are pretty easy to score runs but if you’ll look around International pitches of South Africa, West Indies or England, you’ll see uneven bounce which won’t allow you to score runs easily. Dhoni should have selected Dinesh Kartik who is an experienced batsman than the debutant Murali Vijay. You would be shocked to see that in all his 4 innings, Vijay was caught out which showed his weird selection of shots and lack of experience against world’s best bowlers. Mistakes repeated again and again, in the end, end of India.

Fans should keep in their mind that Virender Sehwag is world’s one of the best opener and a young boy cannot replace him.



More...

 

[Monzi]

I completely agree about that,A single Great innings can't make him a good player.

 

[MaD]

No biggy, happens to heaps of players
Badrinath was once a star
Hughes was too

 

[SaiSrini]

Vijay suffers from the same problem that the other batsmen from India suffer. He has to force the pace and he also has to handle short balls which he hasnt faced much in his career. If he plays in an ODI, he might do better because he has more time to leave the tough deliveries and score off the lesser tough ones. One positive thing is, he has played only a very few games so far in his career unlike people like Gambhir, Raina, Rohit Sharma who have played so many games and yet they have the same problems.

 

[Hitterman]

Vijay suffers from the same problem that the other batsmen from India suffer. He has to force the pace and he also has to handle short balls which he hasnt faced much in his career. If he plays in an ODI, he might do better because he has more time to leave the tough deliveries and score off the lesser tough ones. One positive thing is, he has played only a very few games so far in his career unlike people like Gambhir, Raina, Rohit Sharma who have played so many games and yet they have the same problems.

Agree, but there is a big difference between the short balls on Indian pitches and on Foreign pitches. Indian pitches are just waste.

 

[SaiSrini]

If we can have someone like Dravid or a Tendulkar in the team, they can guide these youngsters to play the short pitched ball better. But Sachin has opted out of T20 and Dravid is not being picked

 

[SciD]

Come on its just 1 tournament. Give the guy a break.

He was not heralded as replacement for Sehwag and India's next big hope though. Don't know where you heard these rumors.

 

[AngryPixel]

No biggy, happens to heaps of players
Badrinath was once a star
Hughes was too

Hughes wasn't just a star he was next Bradman... Wait... He was better than bradman.

 

[AkshayS]

Hughes wasn't just a star he was next Bradman... Wait... He was better than bradman.

Until you are Sinclair or TumTum.

Well Dhoni do not select players.

Vijay is not a replacement of sehwag and that is enough said for him. Give him 5-6 matches more, if he can't perform kick him.

 

[Prithvi]

Vijay=EPIC EPIC FAIL.

His selection was just because of Robbie's fitness problem.
At any time, Murali Vijay is Fail.

He's just a hurdle for players like Manish Pandey, Manoj Tiwary.

 

[Meet]

If he plays in an ODI, he might do better because he has more time to leave the tough deliveries and score off the lesser tough ones. One positive thing is, he has played only a very few games so far in his career unlike people like Gambhir, Raina, Rohit Sharma who have played so many games and yet they have the same problems.

He has failed in ODI as well.

 

[SaiSrini]

He has failed in ODI as well.

He has played only one ODI. Even Sehwag was a failure in his first ODI.

SaiSrini added 2 Minutes and 19 Seconds later...

Vijay=EPIC EPIC FAIL.

His selection was just because of Robbie's fitness problem.
At any time, Murali Vijay is Fail.

He's just a hurdle for players like Manish Pandey, Manoj Tiwary.

I know you have a fanboy thing for Uthappa's and the Pandey's, but Vijay is no less inferior to them. Its just that he was thrown straight into it after a lucky IPL. Can we list out Uthappa's failures in international cricket? Pandey also came to prominence because of the IPL. He had a good domestic season but Vijay has been having such excellent seasons more often than Pandey.

 

[Prithvi]

He has played only one ODI. Even Sehwag was a failure in his first ODI.

SaiSrini added 2 Minutes and 19 Seconds later...



I know you have a fanboy thing for Uthappa's and the Pandey's, but Vijay is no less inferior to them. Its just that he was thrown straight into it after a lucky IPL. Can we list out Uthappa's failures in international cricket? Pandey also came to prominence because of the IPL. He had a good domestic season but Vijay has been having such excellent seasons more often than Pandey.

Everyone knows how great talent Vijay has. Nervous forties against Afghanistan and Nervous off the marks against Proteas, Ozzies & Windies.

Check out Uthappa:
Started off with 86. After couple of games, 70. Followed by regular knocks of 52, 55, 47*.

Check out his T20 form as We're talking off Vijay's T20 form.
50 in debut. Most Required 34 in ICC World T20 Semi Final. Duck against Kiwis 15 against Proteas, 8 in final (Played according to situation, not for scoring high runs as Vijay does).
Vijay was sent Opening, whereas Uthappa was sent at no.4 or no. 5. So, I guess, at any point of time, Uthappa is for better than Vijay in all forms of the game.

Coming to Pandey, I cannot talk of him. If Pandey scores a century, BCCI selectors cannot even see it. But when a player from Chennai Super Kings hits a century, without seeing the conditions and factors which favored him to hit that, they just keep him in Team India.
Although I agree that Pandey was dropped by RP Singh on 0 (in the match he hit century), it was RP Singh's talent of running right below the ball, which made it look like a catch there. See the pitch conditions where Pandey played and Murali Vijay played their century innings?
Pandey played on pure Protean surface, whereas Vijay scored it on his home ground. A young guy of 19, who don't even know how pitches of Proteas behave got a century there. But a guy of 26, who hits an idiotic century against team without proper bowling and on the pitch where he started everything, got a silly century by just rotating bat here and there.

At any point of time, even Manish Pandey is better than Murali Vijay.
Not only Manish Pandey, even players like Manoj Tiwary, Laxmi Shukla, Venugopal Rao, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Ambati Rayudu are far better than Murali Vijay.

And FYI, Murali Vijay has represented India in 4 ODI's.
His first was against Proteas, where he scored 25 off 16. (Those 5 boundaries due to the ground dimensions)
11 runs off 24 balls against Zimbabwe, Run Out when Dinesh Karthik, the Local Chennai team mate was at the other end.
14 off 20 against Sri Lanka, LBW.
21 off 56 against Zimbabwe:sarcasm. I think even RD plays much quicker knock than him in Test Cricket.

 

[Gaurav_7]

You nod too much.

 

[LongLegs?]

I know you have a fanboy thing for Uthappa's and the Pandey's, but Vijay is no less inferior to them. Its just that he was thrown straight into it after a lucky IPL. Can we list out Uthappa's failures in international cricket? Pandey also came to prominence because of the IPL. He had a good domestic season but Vijay has been having such excellent seasons more often than Pandey.

Don't listen to Binnu. You can't compare how many excellent seasons Vijay has had compared to Pandey - it's Pandey's first full season. I completely agree that Vijay deserves his chances ahead of Pandey in the national team at the moment. However, Pandey was always highly rated in the Karnataka junior scenes. Pandey and Uthappa went to the same college, Mahavir Jain College, and Pandey's still a student there. Apparently during matches, Pandey used to change his stance and regularly reverse hit bowlers for six. Only college level, but yeah. Pandey, on talent, is definitely up there. So is Vijay though, his elegance while batting is a gift. Looks technically perfect. And he started cricket late iirc.

I don't know what's wrong with Vijay, but seriously, technically he doesn't "need to improve". He just needs to improve his mental skills. He seems to be playing within himself, especially in Zimbabwe. I don't know what's up with that. He's a very good player in the shorter formats in domestic cricket too. The sad thing is that Rohit Sharma has had over 40+ ODIs in the national squad but has never looked like sealing his place, until now, and I'm still not convinced by 2 100s in Zimbabwe, but Vijay will probably never get that chance. Everyone talked about how Rohit is so talented and thus deserved the chance to establish himself. Vijay is talented too. It's unfair to throw him under the bus after so few international matches.