49 matches and a batting average of 35 in Tests, These are Ravindra Jadeja’s numbers. 13 matches and a batting average of 39 with hundreds in Australia and England, these are Rishabh Pant’s numbers. And then we have Hanuma Vihari with 10 Test matches and an average of just 33. The fact that Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja were left out of the squad for Hanuma Vihari in the First Test and the fact that Vihari still finds a spot in the team for the second test while KL Rahul warms the bench raises questions about his role in the team.
On the second day of the second test between India and Australia, Vihari, batting at No.5, forged an important 50-run stand with Ajinkya Rahane but when it was time to build the innings further he departed yet again at just 21 runs which made it a third consecutive sub-par score in a series where every run is valuable. What followed Vihari was Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja, both of whom contributed more to the total and during their stay in the middle looked much more comfortable. Jadeja ended the day at 40 and until now has already contributed much more than what Vihari has done in the match.
Hanuma Vihari has been a permanent fixture in the team for a whileIt’s slightly surprising to see Vihari getting such a long rope, especially since the Virat Kohli regime has been notorious for not giving too many opportunities to new players to establish themselves. Especially since Vihari has not caught the eye despite being a permanent fixture in the team for a while now.
Breaking down an up and coming player is never justified but what sets Vihari apart from his peers is the faith that the management seems to have in him. It begs the question of why Vihari would be given such a long rope especially by a regime that has been ruthless enough to drop Shreyas Iyer after a couple of failures in ODIs(despite averaging in the 40s in his career)?
What is it that sets Vihari apart? Has he shown the potential to be the future mainstay of the Indian Team? In a career that has spanned a total of 10 tests, only two scores over 50 don’t reflect that. Is he a budding all-rounder that could contribute both with the bat and the ball? He has rolled his arm over in a few matches but it looks highly unlikely that he would be contributing much as a bowler. Is he a great fielder? In a team that has Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, and Ravindra Jadeja it would be hard to outshine them on the field.
KL Rahul has been warming the bench while Hanuma Vihari keeps getting multiple chancesThis is what makes Hanuma Vihari’s case slightly peculiar. If players that have shown world-class talent and won matches for India are benched after a couple of bad outings then what special has Vihari shown to warrant a place in the team and leave KL Rahul out of the side?
With Rohit Sharma coming back for the next game it looks highly likely that he’ll reclaim his opening spot. With Shubhman Gill looking confident and making an immediate impact on his debut, Mayank Agarwal might face the ax which would be unfair especially since the youngster averages over 50 in Test Cricket.
If the Indian team does follow the path of rewarding performances then we could be looking at Vihari getting the marching orders while Mayank Agarwal drops down to the middle order and Rohit opens the innings. Whether that happens or not, Hanuma Vihari would surely go down as one of the more backed players during the Virat Kohli Regime. Slightly peculiar considering the number of justified talents that have warmed the bench or been dropped in the recent past. Be it a Manish Pandey, a Shreyas Iyer, or an Ambati Rayadu who was inexplicably dropped just before the World Cup(despite multiple Match winning performances with the team).
Vihari is ordinary. There is no class. No technique. In 19 inninigs 33 ki avg. Hundreds of people are waiting for chance. Career Over!
I think there has been alot of unnecessary hate and unfair critic directed towards Vihari in this tour. As someone who only plays red ball cricket, he doesn’t have that big of a fan following compared to the other guys such as Shubman Gill, KL Rahul etc. As a result, when he doesn’t perform for 1 or 2 matches, fans will start calling for him to get the axe because he doesn’t play that much white ball cricket (not in the IPL for example). This is very unfair. He is a batsman who mainly plays overseas, and he has been the leading run scorers in the past 2 overseas test series (NZ and WI). People often forget this and just look at his average, which is actually very decent given he has played almost all overseas. Finally, KL Rahul hasn’t done well in test matches, played 1 FC game since last year. Why should he be given a chance in tests when we all know white ball IPL is not equal to form in test matches??
The reason KL Rahul’s not getting a chance is because he is an opening batsman who got dropped after an extended run of bad performances in tests. And after being dropped he hasn’t played any red ball cricket and it doesn’t make sense to pick players in the test team based on ipl form.
Now coming to Vihari, only 3 tests before this test did he score a 100 and 2 50s in 2 tests. While he gave away his wicket with poor shot selection in the 2nd test 1st inning vs Australia, he looked solid during his stay and was looking in control. I also think Pujara and Vihari’s knocks shouldn’t be underestimated because they played a role in getting the ball old which set up the platform for batsmen to follow.
Coming to Mayank, I am a fan of his and I think its unfortunate that he might get dropped for the next test when Rohit becomes available. But I don’t think he should be accommodated in the middle by dropping Vihari by just plainly looking at his test average. Because Vihari has played all his tests but one away from home and Vihari averages 34.52 away from home and Mayank averages 28.78 away from home. So both of their performances are pretty similar away from home with VIhari’s being slightly better.
Now when Virat comes back I think he should lose his place because Jadeja should play play at 6/7 but not now.
Also you should make a correction in your article where you wrote that Vihari only scored 2 50+ scores. He has scored 5 50+ scores in his 10 test matches where 9 off them are away from home.