Steve Waugh said that Sehwag is the ultimate "KISS" player: Keep It Simple, Stupid. But that is easier said than done. After a series of nicks to the slips, it would have been tempting for Sehwag completely to remodel his technique. But he had the courage to stick to his method and the conviction that when he got back on a pitch that suited him, he would make it pay. After a sparkling hundred in his 99th Test, Sehwag now reaches another century. He is looking to be proved right yet again.
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The great gamble of 2002: Sehwag gets off to a flier in his first innings as a Test opener, at Lord's
© Getty Images
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Less than a year ago, I woke up on the morning of the second Test
between Australia and New Zealand in Hobart with the news that
Viru had become only the second man to
a double-hundred in ODIs.
My first thought was, "About time."
To me, Virender Sehwag has been the most exciting player I've watched,
bar none. Yes, I know I belong to the generation that played against
Viv, but having seen more of Viru than Viv, that's where I come from.
With Viru, you never know what's going to happen. Sometimes his batting
doesn't work, sometimes it can be frustrating. When it works, though, he
shakes up a game and turns it on its head. In Hobart that day, I
thought that had Viru batted in ODI cricket the way he did in Tests, he
could have got five double-hundreds. Or more.
But it is in Test cricket that Viru has shown us his genius. He has
revolutionised Test batting, changed the way people look at openers, and
made such an impact on the game that the rafters shake when he gets
going.
Viru's 99 Tests, like his batting, seem to have gone by at top speed. A
hundred Tests is a telling number, but then so are two triple-centuries,
a strike rate of above 80 in Tests, 8400 Test runs, and the
aforementioned double-hundred (off 149 balls).
It is always hard to judge a player in his first Test, but by the time
Viru had played about a dozen, I did think that he had it in him to
become something. For his first 30-odd Tests, I worked with Viru as his
coach and it was a sheer delight to see him grow.
He came into the team in the guise of this middle-order batsman who had
grown up on Indian wickets who could smash it everywhere. In about two
years and a bit, he became a world-class Test opener with powers feared
by all opposition. Over the rest of his career, he has become one of the
greatest openers in the history of the game. People don't normally ever
do that - go from being a middle-order batsman in India to opening in
Test match cricket and producing outstanding performances all over the
world.
What Viru was able to do was play tricks on cricket's very framework. If
middle-order batsmen are asked to open the innings, they go into
existential dilemmas, modify their game, work on technique. Many fail, a
few cope. You will have heard all those stories.
Viru was different; he had no such crisis. He opened in Tests the way he
had batted in the middle order - still smashing it. He didn't redefine
his game because of his batting position. He redefined the position with
his batting. I do not use the word genius casually.
I first met Viru in 2000, when he joined the squad to play
the one-dayers
against Zimbabwe, my first full series as coach of India. He looked a
lovely kid - shy, with a mischievous smile, still innocent and
wide-eyed, like many of the young Indians coming into the side.
Three months later, he made me sit up when he scored 58 against Australia in the
Bangalore ODI. It was an innings of timing and confidence against bowlers like McGrath and Warne.
We moved him into the opening slot in ODIs in a
tri-series in Sri Lanka
for two reasons: we had opening problems, and Viru kept getting out
trying to slog the spinners in the middle overs. He nailed opening the
batting beautifully - with it, he solved our problems and found he could
play his game at its fullest. It should have been a different matter in
Tests.
In Test matches he had a reasonable start as a No. 6, with a century
on debut
in South Africa and two fifties. We were struggling with Test openers
and Sourav and I decided to gamble by sticking him in at the top of the
order
at Lord's, in only his sixth Test.
When we talked to him about the job, he didn't look like he was too
worried about opening. He certainly didn't express it to me (and we had
begun to speak very freely to each other by then). In his first innings
as a Test opener, Viru was the team's top scorer, with 84. Then, when I
saw him on a green wicket in Trent Bridge, in the
second Test, I thought, "This guy is serious." He got a century and didn't look back.
Viru's coach in Delhi taught him to have a beautiful, straight backlift,
so when he defends he is nicely straight and late. His attacking game
wasn't too bad either. He could play so late and generate such bat speed
that if you were a few inches off target on the off side, the ball was
gone. Anything a bit straight was whipped through midwicket. He could
also use the pace of the ball to score more effectively than most in the
area between point and third man.
Early on, we widened his stance a little, and I used to encourage him to
keep his head very still and not let it move sideways. When his head is
perfectly still, like with any batsman, it allows him to play his late
options and makes the most of his sublime balance. He is a great opener,
though, because, along with everything else, he is fearless.
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One of the things that I think helped him find his feet in cricket and
stay grounded was that he accepted his fate. If he nicked something, he
accepted it and wouldn't worry about it |
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Maybe he enjoys opening because he goes out to a clean slate. There are
no wickets down, there's no responsibility like there would be coming in
at six with four down. He goes in without any numbers and can do what
he has said he does: see the ball, hit the ball. In a game filled with
jargon and technique and dissection, it is like Viru knows why the great
baseball catcher and manager Yogi Berra made total sense when he said:
"How can you think and hit at the same time?"
Viru's instinct sweeps him away, and it is what makes him an attacking
batsman. At a basic level, he must sense that instinct is swifter and
more accurate than thought. Thought gets in the way. When batsmen are
playing well, everyone goes by instinct, but Viru had that coupled with
intrinsic fearlessness. It doesn't matter what the game situation is,
who is bowling, what the wicket is doing. He sees the ball and he hits
it - for four if he can.
As captain, batting partner or coach, it is best not to get in his way
or try to complicate him. It would ruin Virender Sehwag. He is a natural
in more ways than one.
He is one of the best balanced players I've seen. Plus, he catches like
he is picking apples, and in those endless beep (fitness) tests we put
the team through, he would turn on a dime. He was effortless at changing
direction and caught everyone on the turn.
One of the other things that I think helped him find his feet in
cricket and stay grounded was that he accepted his fate. If he nicked
something, he accepted it and wouldn't worry about it. It was not that
he didn't experience disappointment or didn't care, but he wasn't
someone who beat himself up too much. What was over was over and he
would start his next innings.
I don't know if that is what you call fatalism. Once, we flew into
Melbourne in a storm and the plane was getting tossed around a little.
He took one look at my face - I'm not the best of fliers - and started
laughing. "What're you laughing at?" I asked him, and he said, "Relax,
John, if the plane goes down, it goes down. There's nothing we can do
about it." It didn't make me a better flier but it told me a little more
about Viru.
The only thing that frustrated me, and that had me get stuck into him,
was that for the team's sake, there were times when he needed to rein it
in a little. But I knew that too much of that could ruin him. People
talk about our little incident at The Oval, when I upbraided him. I made
an example of Viru because I wanted the rest of the boys to understand
that you have to adapt your play to the team's need to win the match.
We sorted that out later, and to his credit, he got over it and we
remained mates. After we won the series in Pakistan in 2004, he insisted
that I be part of the awards ceremony. I tended to avoid them because
the limelight and celebration, I thought, belonged to the players. Viru
had noticed this. After the victory he put his arm around my shoulder.
"This time, John," he said, "you're coming with me", and dragged me down
the stairs of the Rawalpindi dressing room to be with the team.
Viru is the only player I've watched who has pulled off a game suited
for ODIs in Test cricket. If he had played ODIs like he played Test
matches, he would have had much more success. In ODI cricket, I think he
tries to up the tempo when he doesn't need to; he has already pushed
the envelope as far as it can go.
Today he is 34, a senior player, a father, and not the cheeky kid I
first met, though his smile still seems to contains its old mischief. I
would love to believe that he has a lot of good cricket left in him, but
all batsmen know that when they get to around 35, they have to work
doubly hard on their fitness. It's not going to get easier but he can
keep going for as long as he loves the game and trusts his instincts.
On his 100th Test, I would like to say to him: very well played Viru and
thanks for the entertainment. Remember, though, that what we talked
about still stands - that it's not enough to have big scores; the great
ones are those who get the big scores consistently.