On the occasion of Sehwag playing his 100th test, here is a quick write up of what I know following him for years..
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| "If the ball has to be hit, it should be hit no second thought" |
What it takes to be good batsmen? A good technique, good hand-eye co-ordination, good high backlift, good foot movement? To an extent yes, but to be Virender Sehwag, along with this you need to have no fear in your bones and be highly instinctive and think like “its sport after all and not end of life, just go and enjoy the game the way you enjoy a mouth-watering meal” and what kind of pitch you are batting and which bowler you are facing should be least mattered. This unique lad has in a way, wrote the how-to-play-cricket in his own way and quite opposite to the breed of conventional cricketers India has produced, who are busy breaking their head thinking how to survive fast or spin bowling at the middle and then facing few overs, getting settled, then start opening up and value their wicket the way they do their life. Viru is always a different in this aspect, sometimes criticized for not valuing his wicket but that the way he plays and we will only see his batting going weak if we try to enforce him to play defensive cricket, he should free-flow like the way he has been. Being an attacking batsmen, opening the batting in all forms of the game and playing in all of them in a same way like there is no difference between tests, ODIs and T20s, not needing to adapt to each format and yet being successful and scoring loads of runs is quite a challenge. I think Gilchrist and Sehwag are 2 cricketers I have seen, are the ones who doesn’t even care what the situation of the game, what kind of pitch it is, who the bowler is? Rule of their game is “just hit the ball if it has to be hit, don’t think too much”. What an entertainers they are? If not an exaggeration, who literally thinks “no point in scoring 1s and 2s, 4s and 6s should be the minimum you should look for”. These chaps take the game away from the opposition in a matter of 4-5 overs with some quick slaughtering. They are very clean hitters of the cricket ball and they really enjoy the sound comes out of the meat of their bat when they hit a boundary or six, won’t they? Also are natural stroke players and never appear to be fluke and play proper copy book cricketing shots making them look so simple.
Least we knew about Sehwag when he first played for India in 1998 at the age of 20 in Mohali against touring Pakistan side, being in the 30 probable list for WC 1999, he disappointed with score of 1 with bat and with bowling he went for 34 of his 3 overs and that’s the end of his first and short phase with Int’l cricket. Scoring some good runs in coming Ranji season he was back in the side in end of 2000, being a lower middle order batsmen and an off-spin bowler he was not so successful in his intial days until he played some 15 odd ODIs. But as a matter of fact, Tendulkar was injured and Sehwag was asked to open the innings which he never did earlier, he took it as a challenge and in must win game against New Zealand in Colombo in 2001, he scored 60-ball-100, before to this he opened in Bengaluru against Aussies scoring quick 54 and taking 3 wickets which unearthed the abundant talent of future Indian cricket and today he is 99 tests old and which is by all means a very successful story.
Someone like Sehwag who goes by his instinct, just thinks to hit the ball for a six or a boundary. I vividly remember his first century on his debut test match against South Africa, whom till then people thought is fit for only short formats but he proved them all wrong by scoring free-flowing hundred comprising of those classy cover drives, shots of the pads, hooks shots of the bouncy ball and you list them. Many thought he would not last for 10 tests if he played like this, but he played like that for next 99 tests scoring 8448 runs, averages over 50 and has scored 23 hundreds which includes 2 triple and 4 double hundreds, more importantly he has wonderful conversion rate. 23 centuries and 32 half-centuries says it all. Staggering stats is it?
He is the one who never changes the way he bats to please somebody, to recall an instance when he was batting on 294 in Multan test against Pakistan, Sachin was batting at the non-striker's end walked towards Sehwag and told to him “ill kick your ass if you go and hit a six now, try to be patient and score 300”, he said this because Sehwag had already hit a six when he was on 194 to reach 200. But “who cares?” says Sehwag and very next ball he hit it for six to reach 300. Sachin would have banged his head for his waste of advice and had to only go and congratulate himJ. He sees even a very good length ball as a bad ball and smashes it over the mid-on or mid-off or straight over the bowler head or over the slip fielder for a boundary or a six. I remember once he said when he scored 294 in Mumbai against Srilanka in 2008, “at dressing room other players said that I was hitting even the good balls, but I was hitting only the bad balls” how does it matter to him whether it is a good or a bad ball who makes batting look so simple and yet beautiful sight to watch against any fearsome bowling attack?. He still holds the record of scoring more number of runs in a day, 284 runs in a day against Srilanka in Mumbai, 2009 shows what a brutal batsmen he is.
In a way Indian batting and bowling in test and ODI evolved after Ganguly took over the captaincy in 2000, with a good solid bunch of Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Kumble, Zaheer, Yuvraj, Harbhajan,Srinath and Sehwag. Sehwag played a very important role as a opener when India was in search of a solid opener in tests after trying the likes of S Ramesh, Sameer dighe, Deepdas gupta, Shivsundar Das, Aakash chopra, Sanjay Bangar where most of them disappointed (Aakash and Bangar to an extent helped for good cause). Sehwag always evolved around Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman (3,4 and 5) where they provided Sehwag the luxury of playing attacking cricket and they playing the watchful game which includes more of conventional style of test cricket being defensive and guarding the wicket. His 2nd most partnership runs comes with Dravid (first is Gambhir), 2 completely different players in terms of temperament and mental strengths. It’s like rock music and classical music played in the unison and yet one doesn’t interrupt other and audience enjoying both. It should be noted that in an era where India grown as a world class team under a regime of Ganguly, starts which Sehwag gave played a vital part. He off course redefined the opening batting in test matches; none played it the way he played in world test cricket earlier.
What disappoints is, in his first tours abroad against England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand he was very impressive and later tours against the same teams are equally depressing. Outside sub-continent he is still the weak link barring his initial tours. He averages over 62 in subcontinent and around 30 in foreign soil. As a matter of fact he has not scored any century outside subcontinent since 2008, which is more than 4 years. I think, it’s just matter of time and as a fan of Viru I hope and wish and he will come good next time when we tour abroad. Big thing in due and he won’t disappoint, would he?
Viru, is an inspiration for himself in many ways, he looks up his game and corrects and improvises on it. Like he mentioned last week, before the start of first test against England he was criticized by media and people for his lack of form and he didn’t try anything new by adapting his batting style or the way he bats. Instead he looked back to the video clips of his past 11 centuries and inspired by them and next morning he comes and smashes the ball all over the park and scored a quick hundred which created a solid basement for the eventual India’s win. If you look at his centuries, if he starts scoring runs, he only scores big but nothing else. 16 of his 23 centuries have been more than 140 and out of which 2 triple and 4 double centuries. Once he starts, you cant stop him. Gilchrist is one of them.
With Viru playing his 100th test match today, lets congratulate and wish him all the best and hope he makes this occasion even more big and memorable by scoring some big runs and still what is due from Viru is, scoring runs abroad and help India winning the series abroad which we have not seen many from Sehwag yet. But now the gravity lies on 100th test. - Shashi Kiran S S
