A thing about Sharma and Vijay

There are 2 reserve players who are sure shot replacements for every injury or dip of form of the first choice players. They are Mural Vijay from TN and Rohit Sharma from Mumbai. These lads are pretty rich fellows after their exploits in the IPL seasons and they are having hefty bank balances.

The last innings of substance Rohit Sharma played was way back in 2007-08 CB series final when he made 66* against Australia in partnership with Sachin Tendulkar. 

The last innings of any importance M Vijay played was in 2010 October when he made his first Test 100 against Australia at home.

Since 2008 he has been repalcing Sehwag or Gambhir at the top whenever these lads get injured. And off late in ODIs too since he had reasonable IPL3 in 2010.

Have a look at their performances in the ongoing ODI series in SA. None of them have the desire or firepower or the ambition to play for India and to play well. They are getting most of the chances on every replacement. We have the likes of Rahane, Pujara, Pandey, Uthappa and others who play well in domestic cricket. They are reasonable in IPL as well, but the fact is this lads do not have selectorial backing from their region. Sharma had backing of DIlip Vengsarkar, Vijay has Srikanth’s backing and Srikanth, DBV were team mates for years in 1980s.

My point is how long this 2 players would get their chances? Isnt it time to show them the door for the time they sort out their temparament, attitude and most importantly find an answer to the question: “do they really want to play for India?”

Its good that they wont play the world cup, else they would have been easy walking wickets.

Last note, on current form Virat Kohli should easily replace Raina in the starting XI.

Raina has had 20 odd innings without a half century and even if we take the fact he is batting mostly at 6, he has not showed the temparament to bat responsibly. He had every thing going his way. He was retained by CSK, he was chosen to play Tests in SL ahead of Yuvraj Singh, he got a debut 100 and then he lost it. He hasnot showed the willpower to claw back to the reckoning by some responsible batting.

Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kohli, Pathan, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Praveen, Nehra would be my starting XI for Mirpur.