‘Yeh bhi Chetan Sharma ke team mein hai kya?’ – Fans react as Ashwin picks Murali Vijay as greatest Indian Test opener
Ravichandran Ashwin is currently ranked No. 2 in the Test bowlers' ranking only behind Australia captain Pat Cummins.
SHARE
Feb 15, 2023 6:41 pm
Ashwin picks Murali Vijay as greatest Indian Test opener (Source: Twitter)
Ravichandran Ashwin who remained a star in India’s latest Test victory over the visiting Australian side in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) series, had a bold claim to make. He said that Murali Vijay is the greatest Indian opener in Test other than Sunil Gavaskar and Virendra Sehwag.
Notably, Ashwin took eight wickets in the first Test of the 4 Test BGT series played at Nagpur. His remarkable performance saw his rise to the second rank in the Test bowlers’ rankings, 21 ratings points behind the Australian captain Pat Cummins. Ashwin’s career Test wicket tally of 457 is the second best among Indian bowlers behind Anil Kumble’s record of 619 career Test scalps.
Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara are very similar players – Ashwin
Vijay is the only Indian cricketer to have registered more than 10 centuries while opening the batting in Test matches after Gavaskar (33) and Sehwag(22). 11 out of Vijay’s 12 Test centuries came between 2013 and 2018. His career Test run tally accounts for 3982 runs scored at an average of 38.28 with 12 hundreds and 15 fities alongside a highest score of 167.
“Vijay and Puji are quite similar in that they haven’t been celebrated enough. They also had some of the most hilarious arguments. They used to do the most difficult job in Test cricket – play out the new ball in testing conditions, as we tend to need to do whenever we go abroad – so it is par for the course to have a few eccentricities emerge from that kind of partnership.
“They could spend a whole session break arguing over a call that Puji wouldn’t have responded to. Vijay would try to get others to back him, but Puji would stay firm and say, “There was no run.” You can get witnesses and evidence and attorneys, but Puji never changes his mind. Nor does he get frustrated with these debates,” Ashwin added.
Rahul has scored Test centuries in England, Australia, and South Africa, which are considered to be the three most challenging conditions for an opener. Despite two of them being match-winning innings, it's surprising that there hasn't been a single comment for him.
People in comment saying bodied rohit , like why would ashwin rate rohit above murali vijay when rohit only had played 5 matches as an opener outside of india .
