An Ode to India's Batting Triumvirate

Show me a hero, wrote novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I will write you a tragedy. Sporting heroes come pre-loaded with the tragedy gene. A Muhammad Ali who goes one fight too far, a Kapil Dev who is carried around till he breaks a record, a Michael Schumacher who returns to the scenes of his triumphs but as an also-ran—sport is cruel. The sportsman’s dilemma is simply stated: should he retire when the performances sag or give it one last shot so he can go out on a high? At either end of the performance scale, the temptation is to carry on—either to prove yourself worthy, or to establish there is life in the old dog yet.

Australia’s Ricky Ponting was on the verge of being dropped when he made a century and then a double against India, and must be wondering now how far he ought to push. His inspiration to continue playing, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, are probably wondering too. They have had phases before when nothing went right, but it was business as usual soon enough.

Last year, Dravid made more runs than anybody else in world cricket; the previous year, that record belonged to Tendulkar. Great sportsmen hate to go gentle into that good night; they, like fans on their behalf, rage against the dying of the light. For over a decade-and-a-half, these two, V.V.S. Laxman and the oldest of the group, Sourav Ganguly, gave India their best batting line-up, their greatest victories and their top ranking in world cricket.

Tendulkar made his debut in the same year as the Berlin Wall fell; Nelson Mandela was still in jail, and Mike Tyson was the world heavyweight champion. Now pieces of the Berlin Wall decorate homes of tourists who have visited the site, Mandela has graduated from being a president to a concept, and no one knows who the heavyweight champion is. But Tendulkar plays on, a boyish eminence grise in a country whose average age is nearly the number of years he has been an international cricketer.

Pundits have been calling for the heads of the champions, but what is startling is the reaction of the average fan. That no effigies were burnt and no players’ houses stoned after the Australia tour suggests a level of indifference that is painful to behold.

Clearly, we are in the mourning period; in sport, mourning sometimes precedes the end. But mourning can also be a period of celebration. These cricketers have meant something special to a nation shaking free the coils of mediocrity in so many fields and emerging self-confident and ready to take on the world on its own terms.

At 18, V.V.S. Laxman decided to give himself four years to make it as a cricketer; plan B was a career in medicine, the profession of his parents and many relatives. At 22, Rahul Dravid told a friend, “I do not want to be just another Test cricketer; I want to be bracketed with Sunil Gavaskar and G.R. Vishwanath.” Sachin Tendulkar was 17 when he responded to the standard query on the distractions of big money thus: “I will never forget that it is my success on the field that is the cause of the riches off it.”

 How distant the 1990s seem now. A new India was dawning. A feted finance minister breathed life into the vision of a prime minister whose version of glasnost and perestroika was filed under the less romantic label of “market reforms”. Politicians tend to make poor poster boys of their own reforms. Happily, Tendulkar presented himself as the candidate.

It all seems ordained now, but that is only time imposing order and meaning to events. Tendulkar had everything—he was a Test cricketer at 16, and by 19 had made centuries in both England and Australia. He was so obviously mama’s boy—the manager on his first tour of England, Bishan Bedi, spoke of how all the older women wanted to mother him and the younger ones seduce him—and patently non-controversial. And he had the best straight drive in the business; and in the early days a fierce way of handling the short-pitched delivery that reduced those fielding on the leg side boundary to mere ball boys and collectors of the cricket ball from the crowd.

Received wisdom is that India’s climb to the top of the rankings began with that epic Calcutta Test against Steve Waugh’s Australians, who had won their previous 16 Tests in a row. Laxman’s 281 and the 376-run partnership with Dravid ensured India won the match after following on.

The more likely candidate for the turnaround is the Headingley Test of 2002. India won the toss on a seaming track made-to-order for the England bowlers. Nine times out of ten, they would have, as a defensive measure, fielded first on winning the toss. But this was a new India and new captain Ganguly decided to bat. India played two spinners and didn’t pick opener S.S. Das who had made 250 against Essex in their previous match, preferring Sanjay Bangar for his medium pace bowling and adhesive batting.

It worked. India made over 600, with centuries from Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly, and won by an innings. It was reward for boldness, imagination and supreme self-confidence.

For a decade and more, that middle order (now strengthened by the arrival at the top of Virender Sehwag) planted the Indian flag on grounds all over the world—at Leeds and Adelaide, Multan and Harare, Kingston, Johannesburg, Nottingham, Perth, Galle and Colombo.

Individual records came as byproducts of team efforts. Tendulkar’s driving on either side of the wicket was sheer joy. As a 16-year-old, he attacked the leg spinner Abdul Qadir, hitting him for 27 runs in an over. It wasn’t an official international, but it brought together the batsman’s impetuosity and creativity in one nice packet. He was actually beaten in flight once, but trusted his instinct and his forearms to hit high into the crowd.

Where were you when Tendulkar made his Test debut? In India, opposition parties were coming together under the banner of the National Front and projecting V.P. Singh as the “clean” alternative to prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. V.P. Singh took charge while the Indian team was in Pakistan, and Tendulkar was taking his first steps towards cricketing immortality. Those not yet born when Tendulkar made his debut are well over the voting age now.

It is a difficult idea to get your head around—the idea that one individual has been a part of our national consciousness for so long. For those who see everything in black and white, it is easy to ask for the heads of our cricketers; the ingratitude of fans is a running theme in sport. But Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman have an influence well beyond runs made and victories achieved.
For one, it is entirely possible that Indian cricket itself might have taken a long time to recover from the match-fixing allegations a decade ago. Skipper Mohammed Azharuddin confessed to having manipulated results and without the obvious integrity of men like Dravid and Laxman, and those who have retired like Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad, the game might have been destroyed.

Significantly, these batsmen brought to the game an Indianness, the inherited technique and uniqueness of a nation that is sometimes reduced to the cliche, ‘oriental magic’. You can bowl to Laxman anywhere you want, and he will use his wrists to send it between fielders on either side of the wicket. There is no apparent effort, only the most elegant of bat swings, visually all curves and gentle arcs. Laxman’s bat makes no angles to the wind.

Dravid, the man who chose to “walk” when on 95 on his debut at Lord’s, formed a wonderful relationship with Laxman. They have taken over 300 catches between them at slips, and they relax, as Dravid explained, “by talking about our families, the plumbers and carpenters when we were building houses and so on”. When you saw a serious look on the ever smiling face of vvs at slip, it was probably because he had just realised that plumbers in Hyderabad charged more than those in Bangalore. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the camaraderie, and the fact that nearly every catch was taken.

These three players have played 118 Tests with each other. For Tendulkar and Dravid, make that 146. That’s nearly two years in number of days, and if you add the one-day matches, the travel, practice days and camps to that, that’s more days spent in each other’s company than many couples stay married.

Dravid has scored more runs for India than Tendulkar in the same period, a statistic that is not widely known or appreciated. One of the great sights in recent years has been his authoritative square cut or the pull that brooked no response, played while his helmet dripped honest sweat over a long innings. Year after year, we believed when he was batting that god was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

In their growing years, players make huge sacrifices, leading an almost monastic life, the focus on the game and nothing else. By the late 30s, when other professionals—the accountants and managers who do not cause a nation to stand up and demand their resignation—are looking to settle down, the life of a sportsman is over. Your brief career is done, but you have a lot of life left. How do you cope if you are not into the media or coaching or the cauldron of politics known as cricket administration? Especially since cricket is all you know. At 30, Tendulkar was asked what his favourite book was, and he answered with child-like charm, “I haven’t started reading yet.”

The players may not fully understand their future yet; but ironically, we do not fully understand their present (or past) either. The Owl of Minerva, wrote Hegel, “spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk”. We understand a historical condition just as it passes away. In the next couple of years, as we come to a greater understanding of what Tendulkar and company meant to us, let us not regret anything crass in the manner their twilight years were handled. Indianness and integrity have been important aspects of the cricket of the threesome. Indian cricket needs to handle such stalwarts with dignity and maturity.

There is a sense that an Indian team will change from being an old-fashioned one (in terms of behaviour, “old-fashioned” is a compliment) into a modern, unimaginative one where joy, sorrow, exasperation, irritation, ecstasy, sense of achievement, aggression, love and all emotions are expressed with a four-letter word or its many Indian versions involving close relatives. Virat Kohli is a superb batsman and a future India captain, but his response on getting to a century in Adelaide was juvenile. The Kohlis and others like him need to learn from the earlier generation about self-respect and respecting the game itself.

Not that the older lot have been pussycats, rolling over to be tickled. Initially, Dravid’s shyness was mistaken for weakness, but not after he responded to an Allan Donald taunt in the course of his first century in South Africa. The Bangalore boy told the fastest bowler in the world to assume an impossible anatomical posture, not in those words exactly, but in a crisp, short phrase.

The message went home not only to that bowler but to all bowlers around the world. No one tried riling either Dravid or the other two again.

Indian cricket may be at the crossroads; the retirement of the great players will see the end of a civilisation as we know it. But the Tendulkars, Dravids and Laxmans—seen by many as part of the problem now—can easily be part of the solution. India’s next series outside the subcontinent is in Zimbabwe in July 2013. Then come the series in SA and New Zealand. Time enough to rebuild.
Not so long ago, we used to canonise our heroes. The modern method is to spit at them. Our great players deserve better.

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(Suresh Menon is editor, Wisden India Almanack, and author of Bishan: The Portrait of a Cricketer.)

What's luck got to do with injury?

When a player walks off the field injured, we tend to sympathise. We need to pause to think if he is culpable

Sanjay Manjrekar in Cricinfo

August 4, 2011

Over the last few days MS Dhoni has been fending off questions about his team's fitness about as frequently as some of his young batsmen have had to fend bouncers in England.

I'm certain Dhoni has his own views on fitness, and I would love to hear them one day, for he is one of the fittest men in international cricket, but as captain - well, he has to say the right things, doesn't he? His patent response to questions about injuries to his key players has been that they are unfortunate and there is nothing one can do. I agree with him that injuries are indeed unfortunate, but I hope he does not really mean it when he says there is nothing one can do about them. There is plenty you can do about injuries, and there is a very good, logical explanation for why some cricketers suffer more of them than others.

When a player gets injured, it is often termed unlucky, and he is generally spared criticism, on the assumption that it was beyond the poor cricketer's control. I have seen, during my playing career, cricketers take advantage of this mindset of the fans and media to tackle their insecurities as players: you would often find a short period of poor form quickly followed by an injury absence.

Except in obvious cases, like where fingers are broken while batting or fielding - like with Yuvraj Singh at Trent Bridge - I really think most injuries should be held against players, as you would a poor performance on the field. Injuries too largely happen because of poor performance - off the field. A player who does not forget that he is a top-level international cricketer, even when he is not playing matches, simply does not get injured often.

Kapil Dev, the great Indian allrounder, who I had the privilege of playing with, was one of the fittest Indian cricketers there has been, and there is no better role model of a fit Indian cricketer than him. Was Kapil lucky that he could play 131 Test matches as a fast-medium bowling allrounder, missing only one Test in between, when he was dropped for playing a wild slog at a delicate stage in a match? No, he wasn't. There was a good reason for why he was so durable.

Kapil's greatest asset was that he was an outstanding athlete. Unathletic cricketers tend to suffer more injuries than athletic ones, and there are numerous examples in Indian cricket of fast bowlers who were talented but not good athletes. Should the lack of athleticism of a player not be held against him? Wouldn't the lack of a natural flair for numbers be held against a chartered accountant who keeps bungling up balance sheets?

Kapil was a superb athlete, and admirably, it was an advantage he never took for granted. He may not have given you the impression of being a thinking batsman, but when it came to his bowling, fielding and general approach to fitness, there was no one quite as sharp. He knew his body well and he made sure that he never pushed it beyond a certain limit, but he was also careful to not keep it in cold storage for too long.

During fielding drills, even before matches, Kapil would always throw the ball back to the keeper with real pace, while most fast bowlers I saw, would want to rest their bowling shoulders. Kapil thought different. He made sure his shoulder was always ready and never surprised - in case he had to throw hard for a run-out first ball of a match, for instance. Damage to a body often happens due to such sudden acts, resulting in the player missing games because of an "unfortunate" injury. Mind you, Kapil was not injury-free through his long career, but he planned the rehabilitation well, so he was always ready and raring to go for the next Test. Playing for India meant a lot to him.

Kapil did not let anyone influence him into changing his natural bowling action - though it had the potential threat of creating lower-back problems. He believed that if his body was allowing him to bowl without discomfort, it had to be the right action for him. I wonder, when I watch some of our Indian seamers who keep breaking down, whether they have strayed from their natural actions so much that their bodies have started protesting.

Rest to the body, as we know, is as critical as physical training, for a long, relatively injury-free career, and that is the big challenge for modern-day players: to get time off to rest their tired bodies. But it is also true that a cricketer opting out of an international series is not as big a deal as it used to be; players are usually given their time off without it being held against them. There is always a tour of West Indies or Bangladesh to take a break from, as we have seen.

I saw a couple of Indian players come into the England Test series off a period of relaxation, with chubby faces and bulging midriffs. That's not something you'd ever see with Rahul Dravid. The only international cricket he plays these days is Test cricket, and he often has to come into the team off long periods of "inactivity", but each time he turns up, he looks lean and mean. Dravid is another player with an excellent record of long-term fitness in Indian cricket, and he does not even have great natural athleticism to thank for it. What he has plenty of, though, as we all know, is discipline. He is the perfect example of that cricketer I mentioned earlier, who even when he is not playing reminds himself every day when he wakes up that he is still an active international player, only waiting for his next international assignment.

Players who are willing to make sacrifices, I have found, sustain fewer injuries than others, so the next time we see a cricketer suffer yet another pulled muscle, let's pause for a moment more before saying, "That's unlucky."

Dravid and the art of defence

India's No. 3 is a living testament to the belief that you need application and will more than talent to succeed in sport

Sanjay Manjrekar

June 28, 2011

 

	For a defensive batsman, Rahul Dravid is extraordinarily skilled at pulling the short ball © Getty Images

The pitch at Sabina Park was challenging and the Test match was in the balance, but Rahul Dravid would agree that a more experienced bowling attack would have tested him more. Dravid's 151 Tests against the 69 of the West Indian bowlers combined was always going to be a mismatch. But while this was not one of his best hundreds by any stretch of the imagination, it was an important one nevertheless, given the stage his career is at. And it allows us dwell a bit on the Dravid success story as he completes 15 years in international cricket.

To start with, success does not come as easily to Dravid as it seems to do to others: you get the feeling that he has had to work at it a little more.

I believe Dravid can be a more realistic batting role model for young Indian batsmen than a Tendulkar, Sehwag or VVS Laxman, for Dravid is the least gifted on that list. While Tendulkar is a prodigious, rare talent, Dravid's basic talent can be found in many, but what he has made of it is the rare, almost unbelievable, Dravid story. That you don't need to have great talent to become a sportsman is reinforced by Dravid's achievements over the last 15 years. And that he is now an all-time Indian batting great highlights his speciality: his ability to over-achieve. Indeed, he would have probably have performed beyond his talent in any profession of his choosing. Indian cricket is fortunate that he chose it.

For a batsman of his nature and skills, that he ended up playing 339 one-day internationals, and still contributes to his IPL team in Twenty20, shows his strength of mind. It is a mindset that sets almost unreasonably high goals for his talents to achieve and then wills the body on to achieve them.

Dravid is a defensive batsman who has made it in a cricket world that fashions and breeds attacking batsmen. If he had played in the '70s and '80s, life would have been easier for him. Those were times when a leave got nods of approval and admiration from the spectators.

Dravid has played the bulk of his cricket in an era when defensive batting is considered almost a handicap. This is why it is rare to see a defensive batsman come through the modern system. Young batsmen with a defensive batting mindset choose to turn themselves into attacking players, for becoming a defensive player in modern cricket is not considered a smart choice.

Not to say that Dravid has been all defensive, though. He has one shot that is uncommon in a defensive Indian batsman: the pull. It is a superb instinctive stroke against fast bowling, and it is a stroke Dravid has had from the outset; a shot that has bailed him out of many tight situations in Tests.

When I saw him at the start of his career, I must confess Dravid's attitude concerned me. As young cricketers, we were often reminded to not think too much - and also sometimes reprimanded by our coaches and senior team-mates for doing so. Being a thinker in cricket, it is argued, makes you complicate a game that is played best when it is kept simple. I thought Dravid was doing precisely that: thinking too much about his game, his flaws and so on. I once saw him shadow-playing a false shot that had got him out. No problem with that, everyone does it. Just that Dravid was rehearsing the shot at a dinner table in a restaurant! This trait in him made me wonder whether this man, who we all knew by then was going to be the next No. 3 for India, was going to over-think the game and throw it all away. He reminded me a bit of myself.

	He has not committed the folly of being embarrassed about grinding when everyone around him is attacking and bringing the crowd to their feet. Once he is past 50, he resists the temptation to do anything different to quickly get to the next stage of the innings

Somewhere down the line, much to everyone's relief, I think Dravid managed to strike the right balance. He seemed to tone down the focus on his mistakes, and the obsession over his game and his technique, and started obsessing over success instead. Judging from all the success he has had over the years, I would like to think that Dravid, after his initial years, may have lightened up on his game. Perhaps he looks a lot more studious and intense on television to us than he actually is out there.

Dravid has to be the most well-read Indian cricketer I have come across, and it's not just books about cricket or sports he reads. I was surprised to discover that he had read Freedom at Midnight, about the partition of India, when he was 24. Trust me, this is very rare for a cricketer at that age. You won't find a more informed current cricketer than him - one who is well aware of how the world outside cricket operates.

Most of us cricketers develop some understanding of the world only well after we have quit the game. Until then, though experts of the game, we remain naïve about lots of things. I think this awareness of the outside world has helped Dravid put his pursuit of excellence in the game of his choice in perspective. At some point in his career he may have come to accept that cricket is just a sport and not a matter of life and death - even if he seemed prepared to work at it like it was.

Life isn't that easy, as I have said, for a defensive batsman in this age, when saving runs rather than taking wickets is the general approach of teams. A defensive batsman's forte is his ability to defend the good balls and hit the loose ones for four. But with bowlers these days often looking to curb batsmen with very defensive fields, batting becomes a bit of a struggle for players like Dravid.

It is a struggle he is content with, though. He has not committed the folly of being embarrassed about grinding when everyone around him is attacking and bringing the crowd to their feet. He is quite happy batting on 20 when his partner has raced to 60 in the same time. Once he is past 50, he seems to get into this "mental freeze" state, where it does not matter to him if he is stuck on 80 or 90 for an hour; he resists the temptation to do anything different to quickly get to the next stage of the innings. It is a temptation that many defensive batsmen succumb to after hours at the crease, when the patience starts to wear, and there is the temptation to hit over the infield, for example, to get a hundred. Dravid knows this is something that Sehwag can get away with, not him.

He has resisted that impulse and has developed the mind (the mind, again) to enjoy the simple task of meeting ball with bat, even if it does not result in runs, and he does this even when close to a Test hundred. The hundred does come eventually, and after it does, the same discipline continues - in that innings and the next one. A discipline that has now got him 12,215 runs in Test cricket.

Sehwag Interview

It has been 10 years since your first international game. How has experience changed your batting?
To be fair, I count it only as eight years. I became a regular only in 2001. Till then I had only played few games after my debut, against Pakistan in 1999. As for my batting the best part about it is I have never changed it. I have never changed my thinking, I have never changed my batting style. I have batted the way I batted in local tournaments and then first-class cricket, and I have applied the same approach in international cricket. Because I knew I had got success at Ranji level, I was confident I would get some success in international cricket too. But I was never expecting to become the first Indian to hit two triple-centuries, and become only the third player to do that after [Don] Bradman and [Brian] Lara. But that's destiny.

Would you suggest the same approach to a youngster who comes to international cricket: just play the way you have been playing?
A youngster should know his game first. If he knows his game he can modify it at the top level, if required. But if he doesn't know his game then it is difficult to get success at international level. You will get success occasionally but not regularly. If you know your game you can handle pressure, you can handle any kind of situation, back yourself and play your own game and get success.

But with so many coaches who pass through a player's career, is it not difficult for the youngster to maintain his own game?
The most important thing for any athlete is to know his ability. If you know your ability and have even a little bit of a strong mindset, you can get success, because your ability takes you to success. Then things like technique, hard work and practice come automatically, because when you get success you want more. Then you will work hard on your fitness, on your batting, on your technique, and you will want to learn how to tackle various situations, and start talking to a lot of experienced players.

Were there instances where coaches or senior players tried to change something in your batting?
There were a lot of players who gave me suggestions when I was young. At times they were very good suggestions and I took them seriously, applied them to my batting and got success after that. I will give you a very good example. Mr [Sunil] Gavaskar asked me why I stood on the leg stump. Instead, why didn't I stand on the middle stump because if I did that I would cover more area. He said, in any case I did not move my feet, so if I'm on leg stump then I'm too far from deliveries outside the off stump, and risk nicking them. But if I stand on the middle, I'm in a better position to play the delivery. This was around 2006, when England came to play India.



"If you know your ability and have even a little bit of a strong mindset, you can get success, because your ability takes you to success. Then things like technique, hard work and practice come automatically, because when you get success you want more"




The same thing was pointed out by Mr [Kris] Srikkanth, who even suggested I stand on the off stump because I'm very good on the on side and I can pick the ball easily off the pads. According to him, if I'm standing on middle and off and my front leg goes across, the impact will be outside off and I will negate the lbw factor. Also, I have lots of time to play the shot.

So now, depending on the wicket I change the guard: if the wicket is flat then I can manage to stand on the off stump, because nobody wants to bowl into my body as I will easily hit them for fours. So they will pitch it outside off. And if the wicket is doing a little bit, I stand on the middle stump. And I have tried these things straight in a game and never in the nets.

Many former cricketers, especially, tend to believe your game is based solely on attack. Do you agree?
I don't think so. Yes, my game is very aggressive and very positive. I love to play my shots and love to hit fours and sixes. I love to score runs rather than defending or leaving the ball. That is an important aspect of my batting: I don't want to waste balls in any form of the game. When I was growing up we would play a 10-over or 15-over game, and the asking-rate would always be high and I would end up scoring 30 or 40 runs in 15 balls, so I built that mindset right from the beginning and still continue to bat in the same manner.

There is this story about you declining a nightwatchman, where you said you were not an able batsman if you couldn't last 25 balls at the end of the day. Is that true?
It is true. What is the difference between batting at the end of the day or at the start? If you make a mistake you'll get out. So I don't think a batsman really needs a nightwatchman, but it is totally an individual decision. Whenever a captain or coach asked me for a nightwatchman I would say, "No, why? If I can't survive 10 or 20 balls now, then I don't think I'll survive tomorrow morning." I believe that's the best time when you have the opportunity to score runs, when everybody on the field is tired and you can score 20 runs off those 20 balls.


"If somebody is constantly bowling outswingers or outside off, even if he is bowling on length, for me it is boring cricket" © Getty Images




When you take guard, what goes through your mind?
When I take guard I like to clear all the negative thoughts out of the mind first. That I do by singing a song or a bhajan [hymn]. Then, if there is a ball to be hit I will hit it. It doesn't matter if it is the first, fourth, 12th ball. But if it is a good ball I have to respect it, because you cannot hit every ball.

What are the thoughts you look to drive away?
When I take guard, thoughts like "hit the first ball for a four or six" or "try to defend" enter my mind time sometimes. That is a time when my mind is preoccupied with various thoughts. But if my mind is blank, then I will play according to the merit of the ball. So if I'm singing a song, I concentrate hard on getting the right lines and finding a rhythm. And when I'm concentrating on something I'm automatically concentrating on the ball.

So that's your way of switching on. How do you switch off?
Once again by singing a song or talking to the umpires or the batting partner and sharing jokes or something else. But I avoiding speaking about cricket. Yes, you can check about what your partner felt about a particular ball, but not too often. And when I'm in the dressing room and I'm going back to the middle to bat, I just like to chat. If I stay quiet I'm in trouble.

Do you like the bowlers bowling at you?
I'm very happy if the bowler makes me play because then I get opportunities to hit boundaries. If somebody is constantly bowling outswingers or outside off, even if he is bowling on length, for me it is boring cricket. But if somebody is bowling to me, it is a very, very good opportunity for me to play a lot of options.

[Glenn] McGrath, [Muttiah] Muralitharan, [Chaminda] Vaas and [Jacques] Kallis are bowlers who always knew how to frustrate me and play on my patience. But it all depends on how I'm batting: if I'm in the groove then I can stay happy without playing a ball.

Let me give an example. In Multan, where I hit my first triple-century, in 2004, the last half hour the Pakistanis were bowling to an 8-1 field and they were bowling wide outside off stump and I was just leaving every single ball. I played nearly two to three maiden overs. I was batting on 220-odd, so it didn't matter.

Another instance was in Melbourne, when I made 195. In that first session we were just 50 without loss. I had to leave alone balls, defend at times and pay respect to good bowling. But after lunch I opened up. So it is not that Virender Sehwag only tries to score runs, but sometimes I play according to the situation or conditions.

How much in advance do you plan for a Test?
The night before the game I do watch videos to make my plans. Then, if both teams are practising I like to watch the opposition bowlers. A good example I can provide is when I came back during the 2007-08 Australia series. During the first two Tests I was watching all their bowlers closely, how they used their fingers, and I would share my insights with Robin Singh [India's fielding coach] while I was sitting on the bench. The moment I got the opportunity to play in Perth Test, I was ready. So it helps a lot to study the opposition.



"In Adelaide I told Tendulkar that I was absolutely tired. The reason was I was concentrating from both ends: not only when I was taking strike, but I was also thinking how I would face the ball when I was the non-striker. That was the first time something like that happened. Even during my two triple-centuries I was physically tired but not mentally"




There would have been pressure to perform in that series, considering you were not even in the original pool from which the squad was picked?
No, because I was confident despite having flopped for the whole of 2007. Then I even had a bad domestic season, scoring hardly 30-40 runs in the six Ranji innings I played. But I knew if they picked me a big one would come soon. You cannot flop the whole time. I went to Australia with a lot of self-belief and confidence, and I scored 30 and 40 in Perth, then 60-odd in the first innings in Adelaide, and got a big century in the second innings.

There was a first that happened in the first innings in Adelaide. I told [Sachin] Tendulkar that I was absolutely tired. He was curious. The reason was, I was concentrating from both ends: not only when I was taking strike, but I was also thinking how I would face the ball when I was the non-striker. I was putting pressure on myself because I wanted to score runs. I knew the wicket was good, the attack was not great, so I could, if I worked hard, get a hundred. That was the first time something like that happened. Even during my two triple-centuries I was physically tired but not mentally. But in Adelaide I was totally exhausted during those 60 runs. I hope that was the last time, and now I enjoy myself when I'm at the other end.

Tendulkar has said that when a player goes through a bad patch his technique remains the same, but every time you enter the ground it is your mind that keeps changing. Can you relate to that?
It is true. Referring to my batting in 2007, I don't think there was anything wrong with my batting or that I was making any mistakes. But in such a scenario the mind likes to deal with the situation in two ways: score quickly, or play with extra caution. But what remains the same is the technique; what does change is the mindset. You are asking too many questions and you are not concentrating on the ball and that's what was happening to me in 2007, which was the worst phase of my life.

I worked hard to come back and did some breathing exercises, used the [Rudi] Webster [psychologist who worked on and off with the team] method of backing myself and it worked out well. I didn't change anything in my batting. The only thing that changed was the mindset, the biggest change.

Did anyone, a selector, former player call up and lend a helping hand?
Srikkanth was the first to call me and tell me not to get disheartened. He motivated me, saying I'm a bloody talented player, and that when I came out of the bad patch I would score a double- or triple-hundred. He just asked me to spend quality time with my family, and when my time came I would score big runs.


"Ganguly was a good reader of the mind, and that's why he was such a great captain" © Cricinfo Ltd




His words came true on my comeback, after I scored a double-century in Sri Lanka, triple-ton against South Africa and more than 1000 runs in Test cricket. So if a youngster is not scoring runs and is out of the team, even an SMS to him will give him a lot of confidence. He might think, "At least Viru bhai has belief in me". Apart from Srikkanth, Anil bhai [Kumble], [Rahul] Dravid, Tendulkar, [Sourav] Ganguly, [VVS] Laxman said the same to me. I felt good.

Do you think that since you enjoy your batting it helps you build those big innings?
You can say that. I love to hit fours and sixes. When you are doing that you are enjoying yourself and people will enjoy your batting and you are not tired mentally. You are not concentrating very hard - you just see the ball, hit the ball, and if you see the gap hit it there. If you hit those fours and sixes, you have the comfort to relax every few balls.

Sourav Ganguly once said this about you: "The best way to know how Virender Sehwag's mind works is to sit next to him in the players' balcony when India are batting. Every few minutes he will clutch his head and yell, "Chauka gaya" or "Chhakka gaya". That's his way of expressing disappointment at somebody's failure to take advantage of a ball that he thought deserved to be hit for four or six. That's how he thinks, in fours and sixes."
He was a good reader of the mind, and that's why he was such a great captain. He knew what the player was thinking and he would back him and give him the confidence by saying, "You can play the way you want to play, nobody will touch you, nobody will drop you."

It is absolutely true. Even now, if you ask anyone in the dressing room, I still say the same things. But that is for me, not for the player in the middle because if I was there I could easily hit the ball for a four or six, but I'm not blaming anyone else.



What do you focus on in the nets?
I try to hit the ball along the ground, especially against fast bowlers. I also like the bat to come down in the right position and check if my body position is correct. If I'm really watching the ball carefully then automatically I'm in a good position to hit it down the ground. The last two to three minutes I like to hit fours and sixes, but if I'm batting for, say, 15 minutes, the first 10 I concentrate and in the last five I experiment with the shots.

John Wright had a simple way with you. In his book he writes, "All I say is, 'How's your mom, hope she is well? And what are you going to do today?'" He [Sehwag] would say, 'Watch the ball, play straight.'
Because we never discussed cricket it was good. He would come to me and ask how I was feeling. I would say "good". Then he would ask how my mom's back was. I would say, "Little bit of a problem, but she is managing really well." He would then ask, "So what are we going to do tomorrow?" I would say, "Watch the ball and play the ball." I would tell him, if there is a ball to be hit, I will hit it, and as a coach I know you will back me, and you have to back me. We had a lot of laughs. That helped me a lot as there was no pressure on me from either Wright or [Sourav] Ganguly. That is their job, to give confidence to the player and let him do what he wants because everybody wants to perform at international level. That is the key.

Did Greg Chappell give you any sort of valuable tips?
No.

What about Gary Kirsten?
Kirsten was himself an experienced player with more than 100 Tests and 150-plus ODIs. He knows what players want to do at international level, and the best way is to give the player his space and talk to him and give him confidence. The best thing after Kirsten has come in as a coach is optional practice. He says, "If you think you want to practise, you come, but if you think you are happy staying back in the hotel, that's fine, but do your fitness." That's his way of coaching. He is not like some captains and coaches who force the player to come to practice. And if he thinks something is wrong in your batting he comes and tells you that he has noticed over a couple of months that you've changed something in your batting. And he makes the player aware of what his thoughts are on the changes and leaves it to the player to implement his suggestions.

Can you cite an example?
There were a couple of occasions when my front foot was not going across. He pointed that out, and said my front foot was going in front of the wicket and if it went across towards the off stump, I would cover more area. So if the ball is pitched outside off and comes in and my front foot is straight, there is a lot of gap between bat and pad. These are small adjustments that are vital.

I checked with him once about how whenever I played towards midwicket or square leg the ball usually went in the air. He said, "It doesn't matter if your feet move or not, but your head needs to be in front of your body. When that happens the ball will go along the ground." I practised and noticed it worked. The same thing was told to me by [Sachin] Tendulkar and [Rahul] Dravid. I knew it myself, but you still need people to point it out from time to time.



"I have asked Tendulkar many times what the zone is. He tells me that's when 'I see nothing except the ball'. I have asked Rahul Dravid the same thing. He says sometimes when he is in really good form, he sees the ball and not even the sightscreen, the non-striker, the umpire or who is bowling. I ask how that is possible. I have never entered that zone"




Would you agree batting is not always about technique, it is about adjustments?
In my view, if you have good or bad technique it doesn't matter. But you will survive if you can adjust your game at international level, you are mentally strong, you know your strengths and how to score runs. When you start the game coaches will tell you to do stuff in a particular way and kids do that. But the moment you start first-class cricket the coach needs to tell you "try this, try that" instead of "do this, do that". If you feel comfortable you can take it, otherwise leave it.

Sunil Gavaskar and Ian Chappell have always stressed that you are not just about hand-eye coordination. That you can play all those shots because of one important factor: balance.
They are right. It doesn't matter whether you move your feet or not, if your head is still and body is in balance, you can score lots of runs. This I learned from Tendulkar. He pointed out that if your head is still you can see the ball clearly and pick the length quickly. If the head is not still, you will make mistakes. That's why I don't have trigger movements and my body is still and I'm balanced and I have lots of time to play the ball. Why do you want to go towards the ball? Let it come to you, then you can play it. Tendulkar, in one of my first conversations with him about handling quick bowlers, said, "If you're confident about playing a shot, just go ahead and play. Don't hesitate, because then you will make a mistake."

What about being in the zone? Tendulkar said that what people call the zone, he calls the subconscious mind. "… All you need to do is look at the ball and play and the body is going to react. The concentration is such that you don't think of anything else." What's your definition of being in the zone?
I have asked him many times what the zone is. He tells me that's when "I see nothing except the ball". I ask how that is possible. I have never felt something like that. I have asked Rahul Dravid the same thing. He says sometimes when he is in really good form, he sees only the ball - and not the sightscreen, the non-striker, the umpire or who is bowling, he just sees only the ball. But I have never entered that zone even if I've scored triple-centuries twice. Maybe I will enter that zone they talk about in future.

Perhaps you are always in the zone?
You can say that, maybe. Perhaps the definition of zone is different for me. They have both experienced what I have never experienced. Right from the time I was growing up there would be people moving along the sightscreen, but I would never get distracted. But if somebody shouts and says there is someone near the sightscreen then I will stop and move the guy.

When does the bowler get the upper hand against you?
I can handle swing movement, but when there is seam movement I cannot handle it properly. In New Zealand in 2002 the wickets were really not good for batting and I struggled and scored something like 40 runs in four innings. Nobody did well except for Tendulkar and Dravid. So later I started to spend a lot of time at the wicket. I would cut if it was outside off and flick if it was on my legs. I found out that works on a bad wicket: to stay at the wicket.


"If Kirsten thinks something is wrong in your batting he comes and tells you that he has noticed over a couple of months you've changed something in your batting" © AFP




Are you hampered by doubts or insecurities?
When I faced the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee for the first time I had a little bit of fear in my mind. My thoughts were, "Would I be able to face them? Would I be able to play them? Would I be able to hit boundaries?" There were so many questions, and fear also that if the ball didn't hit my bat it might hit me on the body. Those doubts come when you are sitting in the dressing room or walking towards the wicket, and that is when I sing a song and drive away those thoughts. Once you play that first ball then you relax and say, "They are good bowlers, but I can hit them for fours and sixes also."

Tendulkar recently told me that he still gets butterflies in the stomach when he goes in to bat. I was surprised, since he has played for 20 years. He said, "True, but the game is like that. If you think you are on top of the game then you will start going down."

You possess one of the most uncomplicated games, free of clutter, yet you have been influenced by mind specialists like Rudi Webster and Paddy Upton. How come?
Basically there are a lot of frustrations inside and you are telling the person who is listening to you all the rubbish. I'm just trying to clear my mind and heart. Once I've taken all that out of me I'm relaxed and happy. Nowadays I do that with my wife and she is a good listener. Webster and Upton have been good, and they have pointed out examples of good and great players and how their minds would work. Webster told me how Viv Richards, regardless of his form, would always walk like a tiger. Richards knew that everybody was scared of him so he would never change that. So the message to me was, "No matter what the situation is, you need to behave like a champion. And at some point you will deliver." So I think, I've scored two triple-centuries, I have scored [one of the] fastest hundreds, and such thoughts give me confidence and I walk out with belief.

Tendulkar has been an integral part of your career. What's you favourite Tendulkar innings?
When he was there in Multan during my first triple-century. Because I batted the full day with him. He always likes to chat and can get serious and caution you not to hit unnecessary shots. During that innings he told me, "If you try to hit a six I will hit you on the bum." He gave me a simple example - about my Melbourne innings in 2003, when I tried to hit a six on 195 and got out. Till then India were in a good position, but after that we couldn't make a big score and we lost the Test. So he made me realise my mistake. That is why I didn't hit sixes in Multan, but when I was near 300 I told him that I was going to hit Saqlain [Mushtaq] and he could hit me on my bum!

Is there one shot of Tendulkar you would like to have?
His cover-drive, but I don't think I can do that probably because of the lack of feet movement.



"In my view if you have good or bad technique it doesn't matter. But you will survive if you can adjust your game at international level, you are mentally strong, you know your strengths and how to score runs"




What's the best compliment you have got from a bowler?
I don't think any bowler has given me good feedback. Shoaib Akhtar was telling me in Multan that I was only hitting him to third man, so the next ball I hit a straight-drive. "Now you have to accept it was a better shot," I told him. He accepted it.

What is it about spinners? You seem to just get turned on by them?
I was a middle-order batsman who was too good against spin and hit sixes consistently in Under-19 and Ranji cricket, and I still have the same confidence. Once Gary Kirsten asked me, "What would you do if there is a long-off, long-on and deep midwicket?" I asked, "Gary sir, do fielders matter to me?" He burst out laughing.

Any big hitter, like Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Tendulkar, all can hit a six but they don't want to get out. There is a 1% risk.

Let me give an example: I was batting on 291 at Chepauk, against South Africa. I told Paul Harris, "Come round the wicket and first ball I'll hit you for a six." He accepted my challenge and the very first ball I hit him for a straight six, and there was a long-off, long-on, deep midwicket and a deep point. I was so tired and he was bowling on the pads and I was getting bored. So rather than spending 10-15 minutes to get to the triple-century I gave him good advice.

Obviously that confidence comes with experience. On the topic of clearing the field, Andrew Strauss made an interesting comment after your match-turning two-hour mayhem in the Chennai Test. "He plays a game most people are unfamiliar with. He almost manipulates the field. You change it, and it's like he says: 'Right, I'm going to hit it somewhere else now'." Do you really do that?
I don't think so. Because I just said fielders don't matter to me wherever they are standing. If there are two slips and two gullies I will still hit them there. But yes, if they change the field and then bowl according to the field and they are getting success then I'll try and change my shots. I did that against Australia a couple of times when they were bowling into my body and had placed two midwickets, a square leg, a deep square-leg - there were five to six fielders on the leg side. So I went outside leg stump and tried to hit to point or cover and get fours but they didn't change their line or the field. But that happens once in a while.