Is it the end of the road for Murali Vijay?
Murali Vijay
India have announced their playing eleven for the third Test match to be played at Melbourne Cricket Ground. They have made three changes in the team, Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Ravindra Jadeja replace KL Rahul, Murali Vijay and Umesh Yadav respectively. It means India have decided to get rid of both the underperforming openers and try new faces.
Both KL Rahul and Murali Vijay have failed to give India a good start in the series so far. In fact, they were not able to last the first 5 overs together in the three innings of the first two matches of the series. So the decision to drop both the openers is absolutely spot on.
KL Rahul has got chances after chances and he has failed match after match in this year. He was lucky that he got continuous support of the team management otherwise he could have been dropped from the team earlier. There are strong chances that he may be dropped from the Test squad for the next series but the fact that he is only 26, makes him eligible for future opportunities.
But for Murali Vijay, this may be the end of roads. Vijay is 34 now, which means he is in his declining years as a cricketer. If he doesn't get selected for the next Test series then it will be very difficult for him to make a comeback. The chances of him playing further in the current series also look very thin.
Not long ago, Murali Vijay was one of India's premier batsmen in the overseas conditions. But things have changed drastically for the Tamil Nadu batsman in 2018. A bad South Africa tour followed by a disastrous England tour resulted in him being dropped from the Test team. In fact, he was sent home after the first two test matches in England.
A good show in the county cricket for Essex helped Vijay to make his comeback for the Australian tour. But he failed to prove his selection right in the two matches that he has played in this tour of Down Under. In the four innings of the two matches, he averaged just 12.25 with 20 being his highest score.
Vijay never looked the Vijay from the 2014/15 tour who was excellent against the Aussies. He was one of India's best batsmen on that tour scoring 430 runs at an average of 61.43. He was much confident while leaving the ball outside the off stump, which is missing on this tour.
With the likes of Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, Hanuma Vihari and also KL Rahul coming into the scene it will be very difficult for a 34-year-old Vijay to keep his place in the team. All of them are young and future prospects, so selectors will definitely prefer them ahead of Vijay and give them an extended run.
Murali Vijay is without a doubt a classy player but at the moment it looks like that his prime time as an opener at the top level is gone. The best he can do now is to keep performing at the domestic cricket and hope for the best.