Sourav Ganguly blasts Murali Vijay and KL Rahul for failure in Perth

Time is now running away for both Murali Vijay and KL Rahul. The openers have completely failed to justify the faith shown in them by the team management. Before coming to Australia, Rahul had played seven overseas Tests this year and crossed fifty once — 149 in the final innings of the final match in England. He had then flopped in the home series against Windies too, scoring 0, 4 and 33 not out.

On the other hand, Vijay endured a terrible time in South Africa and England and could not cross the fifty-run mark in either of the series. In fact, he was dropped midway through the series in England after scoring 20, 0, 6, 0 and 0 in the first two Tests. A successful stint with Essex where he scored 56, 100, 85, 80 and 2 helped him win back his place in the squad.

An unfortunate injury to Prithvi Shaw then helped him return to the playing eleven. But so far, neither he nor Rahul has managed to deliver. In the first Test at Adelaide, Rahul scored 2 in the first innings before scoring a promising 44 in the second. However, the Karnataka star once again flopped in the ongoing Test in Perth, scoring just 2 before being castled by Josh Hazlewood.

Vijay, who had scored 482 runs at an average of 60.25 on India’s last tour of Australia in 2014-15, could just manage 11 and 18 in Adelaide. And his performance was worse in the ongoing game as he was clean bowled for a duck by Mitchell Starc.

Ganguly slams openers

Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly has come down hard on the opening duo after their latest failure. The legendary batsman, who was India’s captain during the famous 1-1 draw in Australia in 2003-04,  slammed Vijay for his shot selection. He also warned that time is running out for him.

“As an opener, you cannot play such shots outside the sub-continent. In Murali’s all three dismissals, he tried to play the drive shots against the new ball. You’re supposed to play defensively. You cannot just play cover drives with the new ball. Murali doesn’t have much time on his hands because he didn’t perform well in England, now here after three innings you haven’t scored runs. He (Murali) has to be very careful,” Ganguly told IndiaTV.

He soon shifted his focus to Rahul, advising him to take a leaf out of skipper Virat Kohli‘s book in order to deal with the new ball.

“Rahul needs to learn from Kohli on how to play with the new ball. If you’re born to be an opener then you have to play. You have to play defensively with the new ball around,” said Ganguly.

~ Written by Bijoy

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