The fury of a pull shot, in essence, is antithetical to Murali Vijay’s refined batting fundamentals. More so when he pulls the spinners, when his body swivels awkwardly and he nearly stumbles on the follow-through. So much so that you wonder how a batsman manifestably incapable of playing an ugly shot, or someone who paint-brushes even slogs with a touch of beauty, can look so banal when pulling the spinners.
The fury of a pull shot, in essence, is antithetical to Murali Vijay’s refined batting fundamentals. More so when he pulls the spinners, when his body swivels awkwardly and he nearly stumbles on the follow-through. So much so that you wonder how a batsman manifestably incapable of playing an ugly shot, or someone who paint-brushes even slogs with a touch of beauty, can look so banal when pulling the spinners.
Maybe, it’s the reason he hardly pulls the spinners these days as opposed to his early cricketing days. They are mostly cut, swept or slogged (that’s a rarity too). Even against seamers on bouncy surfaces, he generally looks to tuck the ball off his hips, unless it’s too short a ball that it beggars to be flayed, though he’s a mighty fine executioner of that shot. On the final day of the practice game against the Cricket Australia XI, he unleashed a torrent of pulls, specifically against the spinners, in his bid to complete a spot-reassuring hundred.
It’s interesting to see how he started off against Jake Carder, a medium-pacer who began bowling jolly little off-breaks out of sheer whim than anything else.
Vijay slightly opened up his stance, the back-foot more across than when he’s facing the seamers. The slight technical adjustment ensured than he got into great positions to cut and pull when Carder bowled even marginally short, or even short of length. As soon as he configured the length, he would rock back onto the back-foot, would be almost front-on when the approaches him and would slap-pull the ball through midwicket. On the follow-through, he ends up almost facing the square-leg fielder. In fact, all of his 26 runs in that frenetic over, which took him from 74 to 100 came in the arc between midwicket and long-on. Carder kept bowling wider, but Vijay nonchalantly reached for those, the boundary that brought up his hundred was dragged from a sixth-stump line. Normally, such balls are deftly placed behind first slip, but Vijay was in a tearing hurry to complete the hundred that could guarantee his spot in the first Test in Adelaide. After Prithvi Shaw twisted his ankle and ruled out of the first Test, it was indubitable that Vijay would feature in Adelaide.
But if at all any doubts lingered, he swatted it aside like those violent pull shots. So much so that even if Shaw was fit, or Rohit Sharma was weighed in as a radical opening-alternative, Vijay’s knock would have earned the berth.
Benched in the first innings — an indication his appearances hinge on how badly Shaw and Rahul would bat — Vijay was in no mood to let the opportunity go begging. He began in characteristically measured fashion we’d accustomed to seeing — leaving and defending well, and crunching the half-volleys through covers. He was beaten on a couple of occasions by left-arm seamer Jackson Coleman, the angle drawing indecision from him, the feet crease-stuck. But once he sized him up, he strode forward more confidently and even punched him off the back-foot a couple of times and lofted him inside out over the infield. An upper cut ushered in his half-century; instantly he went berserk, his next 79 runs coming off 41 deliveries. He could have, and probably would have, played the normal game, but he wanted to shut out even the tiniest probability of him sitting out in Adelaide.
Maybe, it mirrored his mind-set, flushing out all that pent-up frustration after being dropped after two Tests in England. He’s not the one to crib or carp about vagaries in form or vicissitudes of life, or get sucked into negative thoughts, but he’s a proud man wanting to prove that there’s still glory days left in him. He gets slightly irritated when asked about his age — he’s pushing 35—and the age-query was pushed at him before a Ranji match last month. He brushed it off, with a smirk, saying that for him “it’s always been about a mental game and about how you win your battle mentally,” he had said. He was asked the same question here, and he replied: “Once you play international (cricket), you’ve got to handle responsibility well. Whether it is four years or your first year, it’s about taking the responsibility and doing it for your team. Age doesn’t matter here. That’s my basic funda.” It would be foolhardy to expect a similar vintage-IPL approach from him against Mitchell Starc and Co or Nathan Lyon, but the knock must have helped him find that “happy” mental space—he’s someone who’s finicky about “space” and “mindset”.
In that sense, the Essex stint and the New Zealand tour might have helped him groove into that mental bubble. “You’ve got to find ways to be in that positive frame of mind, where even if you’re not part of the team, you’ve still got to make sure you keep your work ethics to the top level, and once you get a chance, you should be ready to go,” he said.
At the end of the only CA XI game, he can claim that no one optimised the practice game as efficiently as he did. Even if he had to resort to a little banality.
BRIEF SCORES: India 358 & 211 for 2 in 43.4 ovs (KL Rahul 62, Murali Vijay 129) vs Cricket Australia XI 554 all out.
Maybe, it’s the reason he hardly pulls the spinners these days as opposed to his early cricketing days. They are mostly cut, swept or slogged (that’s a rarity too). Even against seamers on bouncy surfaces, he generally looks to tuck the ball off his hips, unless it’s too short a ball that it beggars to be flayed, though he’s a mighty fine executioner of that shot. On the final day of the practice game against the Cricket Australia XI, he unleashed a torrent of pulls, specifically against the spinners, in his bid to complete a spot-reassuring hundred.
It’s interesting to see how he started off against Jake Carder, a medium-pacer who began bowling jolly little off-breaks out of sheer whim than anything else.
Vijay slightly opened up his stance, the back-foot more across than when he’s facing the seamers. The slight technical adjustment ensured than he got into great positions to cut and pull when Carder bowled even marginally short, or even short of length. As soon as he configured the length, he would rock back onto the back-foot, would be almost front-on when the approaches him and would slap-pull the ball through midwicket. On the follow-through, he ends up almost facing the square-leg fielder. In fact, all of his 26 runs in that frenetic over, which took him from 74 to 100 came in the arc between midwicket and long-on. Carder kept bowling wider, but Vijay nonchalantly reached for those, the boundary that brought up his hundred was dragged from a sixth-stump line. Normally, such balls are deftly placed behind first slip, but Vijay was in a tearing hurry to complete the hundred that could guarantee his spot in the first Test in Adelaide. After Prithvi Shaw twisted his ankle and ruled out of the first Test, it was indubitable that Vijay would feature in Adelaide.
But if at all any doubts lingered, he swatted it aside like those violent pull shots. So much so that even if Shaw was fit, or Rohit Sharma was weighed in as a radical opening-alternative, Vijay’s knock would have earned the berth.
Benched in the first innings — an indication his appearances hinge on how badly Shaw and Rahul would bat — Vijay was in no mood to let the opportunity go begging. He began in characteristically measured fashion we’d accustomed to seeing — leaving and defending well, and crunching the half-volleys through covers. He was beaten on a couple of occasions by left-arm seamer Jackson Coleman, the angle drawing indecision from him, the feet crease-stuck. But once he sized him up, he strode forward more confidently and even punched him off the back-foot a couple of times and lofted him inside out over the infield. An upper cut ushered in his half-century; instantly he went berserk, his next 79 runs coming off 41 deliveries. He could have, and probably would have, played the normal game, but he wanted to shut out even the tiniest probability of him sitting out in Adelaide.
Maybe, it mirrored his mind-set, flushing out all that pent-up frustration after being dropped after two Tests in England. He’s not the one to crib or carp about vagaries in form or vicissitudes of life, or get sucked into negative thoughts, but he’s a proud man wanting to prove that there’s still glory days left in him. He gets slightly irritated when asked about his age — he’s pushing 35—and the age-query was pushed at him before a Ranji match last month. He brushed it off, with a smirk, saying that for him “it’s always been about a mental game and about how you win your battle mentally,” he had said. He was asked the same question here, and he replied: “Once you play international (cricket), you’ve got to handle responsibility well. Whether it is four years or your first year, it’s about taking the responsibility and doing it for your team. Age doesn’t matter here. That’s my basic funda.” It would be foolhardy to expect a similar vintage-IPL approach from him against Mitchell Starc and Co or Nathan Lyon, but the knock must have helped him find that “happy” mental space—he’s someone who’s finicky about “space” and “mindset”.
In that sense, the Essex stint and the New Zealand tour might have helped him groove into that mental bubble. “You’ve got to find ways to be in that positive frame of mind, where even if you’re not part of the team, you’ve still got to make sure you keep your work ethics to the top level, and once you get a chance, you should be ready to go,” he said.
At the end of the only CA XI game, he can claim that no one optimised the practice game as efficiently as he did. Even if he had to resort to a little banality.
BRIEF SCORES: India 358 & 211 for 2 in 43.4 ovs (KL Rahul 62, Murali Vijay 129) vs Cricket Australia XI 554 all out.