da dobrowin： M Vijay, who made his highest first-class score earlier this week, is all set to make an unexpected Test debut on Thursday
Cricinfo staff05-Nov-2008
M Vijay has scored lots of runs against domestic attacks but Australia will be a far tougher challenge © Cricinfo Ltd
Will I really make my Test debut? Or am I just back-up? Those would havebeen two of the million thoughts racing through M Vijay’s head on his 680 km journey from Nasik to Nagpur on Tuesday night. Earlier that day he had completed his highest first-class score – 243 for Tamil Nadu against Maharashta – before being called to fill the gap created by Gautam Gambhir’s failed appeal against his one-Test ban.Vijay said he was “shocked” by the development and “didn’t expect a call rightnow”. He has never batted with Virender Sehwag before and what was theIndian Test team a few hours earlier has now become “my team” to him. Anylingering doubts Vijay would have had about his participation in the Testhave been put to rest. “We are going with M Vijay,” his captain, MahendraSingh Dhoni, said. “He will open the innings.”The challenge facing the new opener is tremendous. He was rushed out of aRanji Trophy match at short notice to replace the highest run-scorer inthe Test series in a match that will decide the fate of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. And his opponents are renowned for making life hard for fledgling Test cricketers.”The senior players will go and have a chat with him,” Dhoni said. “At thesame time there’s no point pressurising him and making him too aware ofthe fact that this is what is expected. Rather he can just go in and playnormal cricket.”Whether he makes his debut right now, or after ten matches, it willalways be tough. International cricket is tough. The opposition team willalways look to put pressure on the debutant. Vijay has played quite a fewA-team games and he is doing well in domestic matches so I don’t thinkthere will be too much pressure.”Dhoni is ruing Gambhir’s absence – “It is crucial because he’s been the man in form” – but appears to have handled it with typical pragmatism. “As Gautam is ruled out, you can’t really think about what would have happened if Gautam was here,” he said. “We have confidence in M Vijay as well and hopefully he will give the start that’s needed.”Perhaps the most significant factor in Vijay’s favour is that histechnique won’t be endlessly scrutinised by the Australians in search of aweakness for which they can tailor a pre-fixed plan of attack.”We haven’t got any video footage of him, obviously, and none of us haveplayed against him,” Ricky Ponting said. “All I know is that he’s a24-year old who has made a double-hundred in the last game that he played.So he’s obviously in a bit of touch, in a bit of form. I’m surprised thatthey didn’t go back to [Wasim] Jaffer actually. He played the practice game inHyderabad. But we know him pretty well and he hasn’t had much successagainst us, which is probably why they’ve gone for the younger guy. “Vijay’s call-up was on such short notice that he reached practice after the rest of the team. A team official took him towards Gary Kirsten and along the way he passed the spinners’ net in the middle of the ground but didn’t stop walking until he saw somebody familiar – and not from television viewing. S Badrinathwas the captain when Vijay made his Ranji Trophy debut and he congratulated him by clapping him on the back. After meeting RP Singh, Munaf Patel and Venkatesh Prasad, he went over to Kirsten at the fast bowler’s net, who directed him towards the far end of the ground where Robin Singh was conducting fielding and catching drills.He met VVS Laxman on the way and then, walking a few paces behind theofficial, went towards Sachin Tendulkar, who was waiting to bat at thespinners’ net. Vijay had never met Tendulkar before and after anintroduction, a hand-shake, and a fleeting chat – there will be time formore wise words later in the day – he began fielding practice.Every once in a while the ball would get past Vijay and speed towards theboundary. The first couple of times, Vijay turned around and went tocollect the ball himself but eventually Robin seemed to tell him that thegroup of ball boys would do the needful.Once he was done with the fielding, Vijay briefly disappeared into thechanging room and emerged padded up. He headed towards thespinners’ net and Harbhajan, although he had just begun batting, made way.The first ball was from Dhoni, bowling gentle offbreaks, and Vijay padded it away before preparing to face Amit Mishra and Ishant Sharma, who was also bowling extremely slow.He played the majority of the deliveries off the back foot but cameforward when the ball was extremely full or flighted. The shots that stoodout because of their frequency was the back-foot punch on the offside, thecut and the whip off the pads. He even attempted to sweep Mishra a coupleof times, a shot not used often by most Indian batsmen. Eventuallyhe charged Mishra and hit him superbly into the second tier of standsbehind the straight boundary.Vijay left the spinners net after 25 minutes – allowing Harbhajan toresume – and headed to face pace from a collection of nets bowlers. Hehandled them with relative ease but, when he next takes guard, it will be a whole new ball game.