Team India’s former fielding coach R Sridhar recalls an incident. Where batter Hanuma Vihari came to him and talked about not playing a test match for team benefit during the home series against South Africa in 2019.
In that South Africa test series 2019, Vihari played as a sixth batter and scored 10 (24) in the first innings. After the game, he went to Sridhar and demanded to be dropped from the playing XI in the greater interest of the team as the top-five batter were in form, India didn’t need an extra Batter so Vihari thought it is better off playing another bowler.
Such behavior from a young player, who was fighting for his place in the side but wanted his team ahead of himself shows the character and the greatness of that player.
Sridhar praised Hanuma Vihari in an interview with Cricbuzz
“During that Vizag Test, I remember he came to me and said ‘Sir, I should not have played this Test’. Hanuma had played that Test because he had got a hundred in the previous Test in Jamaica. In India, we play with certain combinations… We still won that Test match on Day 5 but it took the class of Shami to get us there and took so much out of him.”
He said, “‘Sir, next Test I shouldn’t play. We should play with an extra bowler because the way we are batting, we don’t need six batters’. Rohit was on fire in that series, Mayank was batting brilliantly at that time and it was also his first Test in India. Hanuma knew that the captain of the team would always keep the team ahead of him. He understands.”
Later in the second test, India went in with an extra bowler in form of Umesh Yadav in place of Vihari, as he wanted. The test match was won by an innings and 137 runs and went on to claim the series 3-0.
Team India decided to stick with the same combination of five-batter and five-bowler therefore the Vizag Test became Vihari’s first and only international outing in India.
“He doesn’t get flustered by not getting his opportunities to play.” – R Sridhar
“Hanuma Vihari is a complete team player. He always keeps the team ahead of himself.” Sridhar also recalled that moment when Vihari was asked to open in the 2018 Boxing Day Test against Australia, which he took positively.
“Hanuma is a terrific reader of the game. Tactically, he’s one of the best I have seen, he has such a good sense of the game. Even with the Indian team, when he was in the reserves. He used to come up with very good tactical inputs. In Melbourne (in 2018), when Ravi (Shastri) told him that you might have to open, he put his hand up and said, ‘no problem. I will play. He understands the game, knows what the team requires and I haven’t seen him get flustered by not getting his opportunities to play.”
Currently, Hanuma Vihari is in the Team India squad which will face Srilanka for two test matches. India would like to give a fair run to Hanuma Vihari as the regular Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have been dropped from the side.
In past, Vihari has shown that he can bat at any position so, with two spots available, it will be interesting to see at which spot Team India will fit him.