By the time Shankar stole a leg bye off the fifth ball in that over, there were over a 1,000 hateful tweets already posted about the all-rounder, and, right then and there, he was branded ‘not good enough’ for international cricket. Karthik propelling the side to victory, one presumes, would and should have saved Shankar from the blushes, but unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. Instead, despite India having gone on to win the game, Shankar was shamed and ostracized by the fans in the country like no other player had been in the country’s history - not at least for playing a ‘bad’ knock.

It took months for the all-rounder to build his reputation back and make a comeback to the team - a phase where he looked like a much-improved, completely different player - yet one controversial selection, one over-exaggerated comment from then chief selector MSK Prasad, none of which was Shankar’s fault, was all that was needed for the fans to villainize the Tamil Nadu man yet again. One year after the fiasco, Shankar now stands far from the picture of national selection, behind both Shivam Dube and a 35-year-old Kedar Jadhav in the pecking order.

It is important to understand that in Shankar, we are talking about a player who has just played a total of 21 international matches for his country - and batted just 12 times. The fact that a batsman who has batted just 12 times in total is berated, bashed and deemed ‘average’ is laughable in the first place, but the circumstances of Shankar’s knocks makes his case even more tragic. 

Of course, that is no excuse for Shankar’s twitchy and hideous performance in the finale, but the management ought to be held responsible for having Shankar under-cooked heading into the final when they clearly had ample opportunities in the very same tournament to allow him to settle into international cricket; not everyone’s a Marnus Labuschagne, who can walk in and slay the enemy. To be honest, there are more Shankars than Labuschagnes in this world. 

In contrast to T20s, Shankar enjoyed a much more fruitful start to his ODI career. On debut, with India teetering at 18/4, the Tamil Nadu man stitched a valuable 98-run stand with Rayudu to take the side over the line and he then backed it up with another match-winning 46 in Nagpur; let us, for a moment, forget that he won the Nagpur game with the ball. A couple of more heartful performances in the Australia series saw him throw his name into the hat for World Cup selection, yet hell broke loose when Shankar pipped Rayudu for a spot in the 15-man squad for the global extravaganza. Despite having proved himself to be a cool customer who could play multiple roles with elan, and despite outperforming Rayudu in the Australia series, Shankar’s selection was received with hatred and disgust - none of which was his fault. 

From the chronologies of both his ODI and T20I career, there is one thing crystal clear: he was never given a sustained run in the team by the management for him to succeed. Perhaps he did not quite ‘grasp’ his limited opportunities as a few other cricketers did, but there is no question that Shankar, on more than one occasion, showed that he had the talent, skill and composure to cut it at the highest level. In retrospect, the management could have handled his career way better than they did - he could have been integrated into the team smoother, he could have been given a defined role (which they never did) and, most importantly, he could and should have been given an extended run, say at least 10 games, to make the place in the side his own. None of it was done and instead, he was left to starve out in the cold. Villainized Vijay Shankar is not an average cricketer nor is he someone who is not cut out for the top level; he is, rather, a victim of the team’s mismanagement.