Murali Vijay has repaid the faith: Sunil Gavaskar

Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar heaped praise on Indian opener Murali Vijay at the end of day 2 of Mumbai Test. Murali Vijay has been the one consistent opener for India over the last couple of years. His opening partners have struggled with form and been in and out of the team. Vijay has ensured to come up with one big knock every now and then to be in the mix of things for the national side.

Now, when he was under the scanner for having underperformed in the last two Tests, Vijay gave a solid answer to the critics in the Mumbai Test. Vijay remained unbeaten on 70 at the end of day’s play. Now the former Indian skipper acknowledged the same and commended Murali Vijay for negotiating the short ball well. He mentioned that Vijay has repaid the faith showed in him. “Vijay has worked hard to play the short ball. Anil Kumble has shown confidence in him and that is the right thing. Vijay has repaid that faith. There is still a long way to go. He needs to get a big one now,” Gavaskar quoted.

He was also impressed with the way Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara have been batting brilliantly for India. “There is a change in approach of Pujara’s batting. He plays his shots now. The team management has given him that license. Pujara and Vijay have a lot of confidence in each other. They have been superb together,” he added. At the same time, Gavaskar felt that England missed the trick by not setting attacking field for Indian batsmen.

“The field was spread out when the Indians were batting. There were not too many fielders in catching positions. You need to build pressure on batsmen in such situations. England failed to do so despite having put plenty of runs on the board,” Gavaskar said further.

One man who has constantly been hitting the right patch for India is off-spinner Ravi Ashwin. he  bagged a six-wicket haul in the first innings of the Mumbai Test. His 23 five wicket hauls were compared to 23 centuries by Sunil Gavaskar. “Ashwin now has 23 five-wicket hauls. That’s like a batsman scoring 23 hundreds,” he proudly remarked.