Sydney
\nIndia\u2019s Murali Vijay is ready to capitalise on a horror injury to young gun Prithvi Shaw, declaring he has no fear of Australian conditions after almost certainly securing his spot for this week\u2019s first Test.<\/p>\n
The veteran opening batsman smacked an entertaining 129, including 16 fours and five sixes, in a warm-up match against a Cricket Australia XI on Saturday.<\/p>\n
After being dropped following a pair in the second Test against England this year, the 34-year-old was seen to be in a fight with incumbent KL Rahul to open the batting alongside Shaw in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
But a nasty ligament injury on Friday ruled out the teenager who has been compared to Sachin Tendulkar — making Vijay and Rahul odds-on to face the new ball together again.<\/p>\n
Others with an outside chance include Shikhar Dhawan or even uncapped Mayank Agarwal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe come from the same part of India, so we understand each other well,\u201d Vijay said of Rahul, who scored 62 in India\u2019s second innings against the CA XI.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a good guy to bat with and he is fun. Hopefully we can carry that momentum forward into the first Test.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair have batted 25 times together at Test level and Vijay scored 53 and 99 four years ago in Adelaide, a venue he says he likes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt suits me because I\u2019m a batsman who likes to play off the back foot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia is one place where you get the bounce so you can play shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always feels good to go to grounds where you have scored runs, it helps you a lot and I have good memories of it and looking forward to the Adelaide Test.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being axed following his Lord\u2019s failure, Vijay worked his way back into contention through a spell with Essex and said he had never given up hope of earning a 60th Test cap.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are not part of the team, you have to make sure you keep your work ethics at the top level and once you get the chance you have to be ready to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my basic fundamental after being dropped in England until now.\u201d<\/p>\n
While India\u2019s opening pair appear in form, their middle order also looks good with Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari all making half-centuries in the CA XI match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sydney India\u2019s Murali Vijay is ready to capitalise on a horror injury to young gun Prithvi Shaw, declaring he has no fear of Australian conditions after almost certainly securing his spot for this week\u2019s first Test. The veteran opening batsman smacked an entertaining 129, including 16 fours and five sixes, in a warm-up match against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48952,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48950\/revisions\/48952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}