‘I didn’t get the freedom of Virender Sehwag, whatever he got in his life, I didn’t’: Murali Vijay

India opener Murali Vijay, the highest run scorer for the visitors in the 2014 Test series in England, has revealed what it was like to play alongside Virender Sehwag and how it impacted his career.
“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 38-year-old batter told Sportstar.
“The honest thing is the team’s backing and how you can contribute to the team at an international level. It’s a high-level competition and you don’t have many chances to experiment in different ways,” Vijay added.
Speaking on playing with legendary opener Virender Sehwag, Vijay said, “When Sehwag was there, I felt controlling my instincts and playing was hard but to see him go through that kind of freedom was something spectacular.”
“Only he could have done that. Nobody else I feel could have played like Sehwag. What he did for Indian cricket was amazing. Different… he is something else which I have seen visually. I had the privilege to interact with him. It was so simple. He kept his mantra so simple – See the ball and hit. He was in that mode; singing songs to 145-150 kph bowlers. You are experiencing something else. It’s not normal,” he further added.

Vijay last featured in a Test for India in December 2018 during the tour of Australia. In his 61 Test career for India, he scored 3982 runs averaging 38.29. This included 12 centuries and 15 fifties. He also featured in 17 ODIs for India, scoring only 339 runs.
In his esteemed first-class career, the right hander played 135 matches, scoring 9205 runs including 25 hundreds and 38 half centuries.