R Ashwin names India's 'greatest opener' after Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag

Team India has seen many great openers like Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and now Rohit Sharma. These players are considered as one of the finest openers of all time. Veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has made a bold call and picked his Tamil Nadu teammate as one of the greatest Test openers. 

Ashwin said: 'M Vijay, according to me the greatest opener'

Writing in a column for ESPNcricinfo Ashwin said, "Murali Vijay, according to me the greatest opener for India outside of Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag, and Puji are quite similar in that they haven't been celebrated enough. They also had some of the most hilarious arguments. They used to do the most difficult job in Test cricket - play out the new ball in testing conditions, as we tend to need to do whenever we go abroad - so it is par for the course to have a few eccentricities emerge from that kind of partnership."

"During all these years of knowing him (Pujara), I have learnt that his game is just an extension of his personality. And his personality is stubborn. You just can't win an argument with him. He never concedes a point. I enjoy seeing his stubborn side, so I try to lead him into arguments while others around say, "Ash, you know you are not going to win", Ashwin said. 

Murali Vijay retired from International cricket a few days back after being out of the team for at least three years. Murali Vijay had an exceptional Test career for Team India as he made runs both in India and overseas. Whenever Vijay used to cross the fifty run mark 60 times out of 100 he used to convert that into big centuries. 

Talking about Ravichandran Ashwin's performance in Test cricket, he has been one of the key wicket takers for the Indian team for a long time and he also became the second fastest bowler to take 450 wickets in Test cricket. 

Ashwin rattled the Australia batsmen in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Nagpur and picked up 8 wickets in the match. 

Team India will take on Australia in the second Test at New Delhi from 17th February.