India is playing Test cricket for decades now and has produced many star cricketers during this time period. However, there have been only a few names who have completely owned a place in the team. Among those few names are legendary Sunil Gavaskar, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar, and Kapil Dev. While Sachin piled up runs for India, Kapil Dev won the first World Cup for the team. Meanwhile, Sunil Gavaskar made a name for himself while opening the innings for India in red-ball cricket.
Even after years of his retirement, Gavaskar is reckoned as the best Test opener India produced. No one came close to the Little Master. However, Virender Sehwag did threaten to a certain extent. The former India cricketer made a mark in Test cricket for his fearless approach. Sehwag piled up runs with no fear in his head and the former opener has often revealed that he always had the backing from the management.
After Sehwag, India has not got a Test opener of such level. India has tried a handful of names but no one has reached that level. But Murali Vijay was one of the names to consolidate his position as an opener in the Test team. The Tamil Nadu cricketer was consistently selected in the team and also scored runs. However, after three-four years, Vijay also faded out and the likes of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma took over.
Now, having lost all hopes for a comeback, Vijay announced a few days back that he is done with BCCI. The opener said that he will look for opportunities abroad. Vijay then also opened up on what he missed during his career. He said that he did not have the backing like Sehwag and hence could try limited things.
"Consciously, I didn't get the freedom of Virender Sehwag to be honest. Whatever Sehwag got in his life, I didn't. If I could have got that kind of backing and open-spreaded talks, I could have also tried. The honest thing is the team's backing and how you can contribute to the team at the international level. It's a high-level competition and you don't have many chances to experiment in different ways," Vijay said on Wednesday with WV Raman for Sportstar.