'Let's keep our fingers crossed' - Vijay Shankar opens up on the fate of IPL 2020 and his absence from Team India

Before the start of the world cup 2019, Vijay Shankar was India’s number 4 batsman. In fact, before the tournament, he had the backing of the Indian captain Virat Kohli. However, something changed as he was not given the number of opportunities as expected. But then, the most tragic thing happened to Shankar. He got injured on his foot in the training session and was ruled out of the world cup.S

Since then, he has not made a come back to the Indian side. In the wake of the coronavirus threat, Shankar has been in his hometown of Chennai and awaiting the call from his IPL franchise for the training session. With the 21-day lockdown announced by the Indian government, the likeliness of the tournament to be held seems very less. The Tamil Nadu all-rounder Vijay revealed that there is still no message from the Sunrisers Hyderabad. He added that things at this moment don’t look very promising.

When the interviewer was asked about the fate of the IPL 2020, he said,” No message, nothing. But things don’t look promising at this point and it would be too early to comment upon anything. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wait.”

‘I just need to put in the right effort’: Vijay Shankar

After this, he was asked about his exclusion from the side for the three-match ODI series against South Africa. The series was eventually cancelled due to the COVID-19 threat. He said that he did not think about much about the selection and he does want to play his own game. He says one should always keep performing whether pondering over selection anymore.

“I generally don’t think about such things because even on that New Zealand A tour, I was picked in the last moment (as a replacement to Hardik Pandya). I was preparing for the Ranji Trophy game for Tamil Nadu but I got a call at the eleventh hour to join the A team for NZ tour. I am someone who generally doesn’t think much about such things” Vijay said during the telephonic interview with MyKhel.

“It has to happen when it will happen, I just need to put in the right effort. I need to keep working hard on all aspects of my game. I cannot sit and crib and get disappointed on all such things. This is just a part of our lives. We need to keep pushing ourselves, we need to keep performing whenever we go on the ground. This is mandatory and I feel, I should just focus a lot on that rather than thinking about why I am not selected”, he further added.