India vs West Indies: Strike rate strikes out Test specialist Murali Vijay

Hence there was a suspension of disbelief when Vijay was omitted. Batting coach Sanjay Bangar confirmed that Vijay was perfectly fit but lost out to Dhawan and Rahul. “Vijay was available for selection and it was the management’s call to stick to Shikhar Dhawan because KL had a phenomenal game in the last match where he scored 150,” he said.

Rahul’s inclusion brooks no argument. The youngster has been on a steady upward climb since his debut in Australia, scoring three hundreds in three different continents in as many series. In this scenario, it was a straight shootout between Dhawan and Vijay. You’d wonder at the incredulity of this dilemma, for Vijay had been a markedly improved batsman since 2013, amassing 2012 runs at an average of 46.79 in 25 matches, with hundreds in England, Australia and Bangladesh.

Vijay’s renaissance coincided with Dhawan’s Test foray, and in 22 Tests has crunched out 1420 runs at a presentable aggregate of 40.57.

Dig deeper and you’ll find the wide chasm of disparity between them. In the four major overseas tours, Vijay has averaged 60.25 in Australia, 40.20 in England, 37 in South Africa and 12 in New Zealand, the latter being the only blot in an otherwise impeccable body of numbers of an opening batsman. Dhawan’s corresponding average reads 27.83 in Australia, 20.33 in England, 19 in South Africa and 53.75 in New Zealand. Apart from New Zealand, Dhawan couldn’t manage even half of Vijay’s aggregate.

Both plundered big hundreds in Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, Vijay scored 82 runs in two innings in his only Test. Dhawan totalled 162 in his only outing. Later in a generally low-scoring series against South Africa, Vijay tallied 35 while Dhawan churned out 25.

Numbers apart, there was a telling difference in the way they made those runs. Vijay was almost always assured, whether it be countering swing, reverse swing, bounce or spin, his judgement outside the off-stump zen-like and stroke-making mellifluous.

Dhawan, on the other hand, was subject to much scrutiny, especially after his failings in England and Australia, where he was dropped for the last Test.

“The team management felt that Shikhar had also done enough to keep his place in the team having scored a good 87 and then giving us the start in the first innings and negotiating the new ball in a partnership of 90 runs (with Pujara),” Bangar reasoned.

Also implied in Bangar’s reply was Dhawan’s supposed ability to score runs faster than Vijay, a fixation of Virat Kohli and the same reason he said when roping in Rohit Sharma. Dhawan strike rate of 60.43 is evidently better than Vijay’s (46.88).

But if better strike rates were a criteria in Tests, Shahid Afridi, with a stunning hitting rate of 86.97, would have played more than 27 Tests. While scoring brisk runs is a bonus in Tests, it’s not an imperative that guarantees success. So if it was a head-to-head Vijay-Dhawan elimination scenario, Vijay certainly had a headway over Dhawan.