Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017: Five players to look out for in the future

This year’s edition of Vijay Hazare has been more pulsating and entertaining to the previous edition of the tournament. Almost all the teams did not have their star players as they were part of the Indian squad for the Australia Test series.

M S Dhoni marked his domestic return with a string of fabulous performance against the likes of Chattisgarh, Delhi and Bengal. The strategies and the playing XI this year saw a significant upgrade for few and a few downgrades for the others.

Delhi arguably has the best side in this year’s tournament in terms of international players in the team. Tamil Nadu, the champions of the Vijay Hazare 2017 had to revamp their side from last year’s semi-final exit, with as many as five changes in the starting line-up over one season.

International players like Shikhar Dhawan has failed to utilise the platform to show his worth to the Indian side whereas on the other hand Mohammed Shami has knocked on the doors of the selectors with a string of good performances in the tournament.

Talking about team efforts, Bengal and Tamil Nadu stood out from the rest, despite teams like Karnataka getting a clean sweep over its competitors in the group D of the tournament.

Vijay Hazare has always been one of the platforms for showcasing the innate talent that every player has, and just like last season, there were players who utilised this for an improvement and the others form just dipped.

Dinesh Karthik’s form has been a blessing in disguise for Delhi Daredevils for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The likes of Shreevats Goswami, Aswin Crist have improved drastically over the last season and has helped their teams in dire situations.

Here we pick the five players who might in the future feature in the Blue Jersey:

1) Aswin Crist

The tall, lanky right-arm quick from Tamil Nadu has impressed the critics with consistent performance in the past few years. This year’s Ranji Trophy saw Aswin Crist pick up 35 wickets with best figures of 6/31 and best match figures of 7/82.

The right-arm quick has also played a crucial part in Tamil Nadu’s victory in the Vijay Hazare Trophy finishing as the leading wicket-tacker in the tournament with 20 wickets under his name. The pace bowler could be a difficult customer to face on a pitch which supports the fast-bowlers

His relentless work ethic also means that he is an asset to any team even on a dry pitch where the workload of the fast bowlers could be a huge burden. With the lack of tall-quick bowlers who are consistent in the domestic circuit, Aswin Crist would be one of the leading candidates for a place in Team India.