Vijay Hazare Trophy 2018: TNCA drops Murali Vijay for last three fixtures
Published - 09 Feb 2018, 04:23 PM | Updated - 22 Aug 2024, 11:48 PM
Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) has taken a bold step as it has dropped an international player Murali Vijay from the side.
An opening batsman Vijay has been sidelined for the last three games of Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017-18.
Vijay didn’t report at the ground for Tamil Nadu’s third game of the season and that’s the solid reason behind TNCA dropping him,
The release from the state association read as: “The State Selection committee of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association has replaced M. Vijay with Pradosh Ranjan Paul. This was after M. Vijay failed to report for today’s [Thursday’s] Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day Group ‘C’ league match against Mumbai due to shoulder pain which neither the State selection committee, the team Physio nor the TNCA were aware of.”
He was selected in the state-side along with R Ashwin after playing the three-match Test series against South Africa.
Vijay played the first two games of the tournament and had average outings. In the first game against Gujarat, he scored 11 runs while in the second contest against Goa, he scored 51 runs.
Today, however, he missed the marquee tie of the day against Mumbai, which Tamil Nadu lost by just two wickets. Vijay was to be the star attraction in this marquee contest but he didn’t play.
As the release mentions, Murali Vijay is suffering from shoulder pain but he didn’t inform the authorities, which is surely not acceptable.
TNCA is not the first association to drop a player as DDCA did not include Ishant Sharma in the squad for their Ranji Trophy game against Rajasthan in 2015/16 season when the India Test player did not respond to calls and messages of the Chief Selector.
Recently, Gautam Gambhir was also on the cusp of being dropped from the Delhi team due to behavioural issues but the manager of the team did not submit a report, which saved him from being dropped.
The international players sometimes adopt casual behaviour while playing domestic cricket, which should surely be looked into by the apex board.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu will face Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan in their next three games. They have lost two out of three contests they have played.
The chances of the Vijay Shankar led side qualifying for the next round looks bleak, which would also mean that they will not be able to defend the title which they won last year after defeating Bengal in the final.
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