County hundred on debut speaks volumes about Vijay's character

England is not that bad a place to bat after all. Murali Vijay knew this, he had done it four years ago with great authority. He just needed a change of environment, needed to shrug off the fear of losing his spot. After all that was taken care of, he tweaked his stance ever so slightly, just a subtle adjustment of pressing forward and leaning into the drive a bit more than usual and that was it, the Murali Vijay of 2014 was back. The Indian opener became the first batsman to score a century on debut for Essex in nine years.

England is not that bad a place to bat after all. Murali Vijay knew this, he had done it four years ago with great authority. He just needed a change of environment, needed to shrug off the fear of losing his spot. After all that was taken care of, he tweaked his stance ever so slightly, just a subtle adjustment of pressing forward and leaning into the drive a bit more than usual and that was it, the Murali Vijay of 2014 was back. The Indian opener became the first batsman to score a century on debut for Essex in nine years. South Africa's Hashim Amla was the last to score a hundred on debut for Essex in 2009.

Some might say Vijay’s 100 that guided  Essex to a stroll-in-the-park eight-wicket win over Nottinghamshire in a County Championship Division One match at Trent Bridge, came a bit too late for his liking. For it did little to alter the reality that he is no longer India’s preferred opener but in reality, that century spoke a lot about Vijay’s character, gave a true account of Vijay the batsman, who is not ready to throw in the towel just yet, like many believed he would after being dropped from the Indian squad for the final three Test matches against England. Therefore, the county hundred was just perfectly timed like his cover drives on Thursday.

Back-to-back 50’s for @mvj888 on debut...

Sit back & enjoy 👇 with your morning ☕️ pic.twitter.com/SBGXL55omS

— Essex Cricket (@EssexCricket) September 13, 2018

Not to forget, it came after he already struck a smooth 56 in his first tryst with county cricket in the first innings. Yes, there was no James Anderson to deal with, there was no Stuart Broad asking questions about his defence, the Trent Bridge track too did not have the same venom the Edgbaston or Lord’s ones had during the Test matches but more than the external factors, it was Vijay himself.

The pair he had in his last Test at Lord’s exposed his vulnerability both against the incoming and outgoing deliveries. Even Sanjay Manjrekar, who aptly pointed out shortcomings of each and every Indian batsman after the first two Test matches had failed to provide a diagnosis to Vijay’s problems.  “In this series so far, he has been out leaving the ball and also while playing it when in the channel, so he must feel like he has hit a wall,” Manjrekar had said while dissecting Vijay’s batting. From there to again have the courage to first agree to sign a deal with an English county after a nightmarish first couple of weeks in the same country that took to him to a dead-end and then score over 150 runs on his debut, speaks volumes about Vijay.

The 34-year-old has a couple of more matches before the season ends and if he adds a few more good scores, then who knows, he could well be in that flight to Australia, the door for which seemed close once and for all.