A question mark will dangle over Virender Sehwag’s career from now on, not because he is out of form but because he does not quite fit anymore into the circle of mediocrity that dominates Indian cricket today
It is hugely ironical that an uncommonly gifted Test batsman who has never had the numbers on the scoreboard in his sights now has the lack of runs being thrown at him by the national selectors as the reason for his ouster from the team.
Neither the reputation of the bowler that he was up against, nor his own batting average, has ever appeared to matter to Virender Sehwag. Now that the chips are down, even his standing as a master destroyer of bowling attacks cannot come to his rescue. Such are the ways of Indian cricket.
There has been nobody quite like Virender Sehwag in living memory, save the great Viv Richards and, to a lesser extent, Sanath Jayasuriya. One of the most explosive batsmen the world has ever known is now out of the reckoning because Murli Vijay of Tamil Nadu and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), an opening batsman who came good in the Hyderabad Test the other day after muffing up many opportunities and who has an average that hovers around the mid-30s, is being regarded as a better bet than the Nawab of Najafgarh for the demanding tour of South Africa later this year. Such indeed are the ways of Indian cricket.
Says coach AN Sharma, the man who groomed the champion: “It is really sad. I am really disappointed. Why is Viru always the only one to be axed?” The answer, dear friends, is that the men who run Indian cricket, and that currently includes the captain of the national squad, have distaste for loose cannons that do their own bidding.
Kiran More, former India stumper and ex-chairman of selectors who is always an establishment man, believes that “in the last one and a half years Sehwag has had his opportunities and failed to deliver”. He adds: “Sehwag was dropped only because of bad form. No other motives should be imputed to the move.”
Sharma, on his part, chooses to be cautious. “We all know why he has been dropped. If I say anything, it will only go against Viru.” Former India batsman and one-time chief selector Anshuman Gaekwad, however, believes that it would be wrong to say that Sehwag has been axed. “I would say he has only been rested. You do not drop a player of his stature.”
Viru has had an extremely rough time with the bat these past few weeks. Despite all his singular exploits of the past, he is neither Mahendra Singh Dhoni nor Sachin Tendulkar. So no concessions were made by the executioners that were lying in wait for him to slip up. Slip up he did, but to conclude that Sehwag’s days as an international batsman are over would be unfair not only to him but to the cause of the Indian team.
Murli Vijay, who on the back of a pitiful domestic season got a hundred in the Irani Trophy and, consequently, another Test call-up, finally rattled up some runs in the second Test match against Australia. Sehwag, on the other hand, failed yet again. We could see it coming.
The very ‘bold’ selectors – empowered no doubt by the carte blanche handed out to them by the BCCI president who also happens to be the Chennai Super Kings owner – did exactly what was expected of them. They brought the axe down on Viru without even deigning it fit to look for a replacement for the swashbuckler in the 15-member squad for the next two Tests against Australia.
India is playing the final two Tests of the ongoing series with a complement of 14 players. If Sehwag wasn’t going to be replaced with another player, what was the great hurry to get rid of him? There is obviously more to it than meets the eye. A rift with the captain, a question of attitude, a palpable slowing down of his reflexes with age and the disappearance of his uncanny hand-eye coordination are among the various reasons being cited for Sehwag’s exclusion. The question is: can he work his way back into the team with so much loaded against him?
“Of course, he can come back,” says Gaekwad. “He still has a lot of cricket left in him.” Kiran More seconds that: “He will certainly come back. He is the greatest opening batsman India has ever had along with Sunil Gavaskar. He has won many matches for India. A batsman who can hit a double century in a single day will always win matches for you. Is there anyone like him on the horizon?”
Having lost his place in the Indian Test team, Sehwag is being told in no uncertain terms that he does not fit into the selectors' plans for the future. That line of thinking is unlikely to change until Dhoni and his CSK cronies – Vijay, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja (Suresh Raina is currently out of favour) – rule the roost under a rather benevolent dispensation that gave the India captain the longest rope that a captain has ever been given in the history of cricket in this country – he lost 10 of his last 13 Test matches and yet retained the faith of the selectors. But as we said earlier, everybody isn’t born as lucky as Dhoni, not even the likes of Suni Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.
Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly, like everyone else who regards Sehwag as a special talent, did see Dhoni’s hand in Sehwag’s ouster. But he was quick to retract his statement. He may have had his reasons, but his surmise was bang on. Ganguly has, of course, asserted that Viru should have been persisted with because he is always only a single innings away from a match-winning, career-reviving knock.
But the selectors reserve all their patience for only a small charmed circle of cricketers who derive their clout from linkages forged outside the arena. They will not touch a Tendulkar even if he is well past his sell-by date. They will find innovative reasons to keep persisting with a Rohit Sharma in ODIs despite repeated failures. But they will use a completely different yardstick when the man in question is Sehwag.
So, have we seen the last of Virender Sehwag in the international arena? He was dropped from the ODI scheme of things earlier and now with his Test spot in doubt, is he out for good? On his part, he has expressed confidence that he has it in him to wrest back in spot in the Indian Test side. But as things stand, it looks a little difficult.
Sharma says the Delhi dasher would have to change his game drastically to extend his career, while More is of the opinion that he should keep playing the way he does. “I would always spend my money to watch Sehwag bat no matter what it costs,” says the former Indian wicket-keeper. “He is an outstanding batsman who is in a league of his own.”
With his long-time opening partner, Gautam Gambhir, also out in the cold, and the selectors claiming that they have their eyes on the future, it seems unlikely that Sehwag will be back in the mix unless a miracle intervenes.
Our cricket experts are obviously turning into clairvoyants who can see very, very far into the future. Sunil Gavaskar has recommended that Dhoni should continue as India’s captain until the 2019 World Cup. If Dhoni is the future of Indian cricket, Sehwag clearly isn’t.
Indian cricket has seen a few flamboyant stroke-makers in the past – the likes of Mushtaq Ali, CK Nayudu, Brijesh Patel and Sandeep Patil – come to mind, but there has been nobody who has had the kind of impact that Sehwag has had. He transformed Indian batting in a way that even Sachin Tendulkar never did.
“I have never seen a player like him in world cricket,” says Gaekwad. Sehwag has the fastest triple century in Test cricket under his belt. That innings, played against South Africa in Blomfontein, should rank among the greatest knocks ever. He got to 300 off just 278 balls. When he got out at 319, it was already the highest individual Test score registered at a strike rate of over 100. Sehwag is truly incomparable.
The tempo that he injected into India’s batting as a Test opener – his move from the middle-order to the top of the batting line-up was an inspired one – changed the team’s approach completely in games both at home and overseas and that helped India set a platform for big conquests on foreign soil.
Indian batsmen tend to be obsessed with statistics. Sehwag has never bothered to look up at the scoreboard – or at least that is the impression he gives thanks to the manner in which he goes about his job. Remember his awesome 195 against Australia on an opening day of a Test match in Melbourne in 2003? An ordinary batsman would have opted for five carefully taken singles to get to his double century. But not so Sehwag. He sought to clear the ropes and holed out in the deep. He walked back to the pavilion as if nothing had happened, his shoulders still upright and his gait still as easy as ever.
That has been the greatest attribute of Sehwag’s game – he can take the rough with the smooth with equal composure. He has therefore often been accused of not being ambitious enough. But why would one of the most entertaining batsmen the game has ever produced worry about little things like ambition if he can get two triple hundreds in Tests and join a small club of only four players, including Don Bradman and Brian Lara?
It is hugely ironical that an uncommonly gifted Test batsman who has never had the numbers on the scoreboard in his sights now has the lack of runs being thrown at him by the national selectors as the reason for his ouster from the team.
Neither the reputation of the bowler that he was up against, nor his own batting average, has ever appeared to matter to Virender Sehwag. Now that the chips are down, even his standing as a master destroyer of bowling attacks cannot come to his rescue. Such are the ways of Indian cricket.
There has been nobody quite like Virender Sehwag in living memory, save the great Viv Richards and, to a lesser extent, Sanath Jayasuriya. One of the most explosive batsmen the world has ever known is now out of the reckoning because Murli Vijay of Tamil Nadu and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), an opening batsman who came good in the Hyderabad Test the other day after muffing up many opportunities and who has an average that hovers around the mid-30s, is being regarded as a better bet than the Nawab of Najafgarh for the demanding tour of South Africa later this year. Such indeed are the ways of Indian cricket.
Says coach AN Sharma, the man who groomed the champion: “It is really sad. I am really disappointed. Why is Viru always the only one to be axed?” The answer, dear friends, is that the men who run Indian cricket, and that currently includes the captain of the national squad, have distaste for loose cannons that do their own bidding.
Kiran More, former India stumper and ex-chairman of selectors who is always an establishment man, believes that “in the last one and a half years Sehwag has had his opportunities and failed to deliver”. He adds: “Sehwag was dropped only because of bad form. No other motives should be imputed to the move.”
Sharma, on his part, chooses to be cautious. “We all know why he has been dropped. If I say anything, it will only go against Viru.” Former India batsman and one-time chief selector Anshuman Gaekwad, however, believes that it would be wrong to say that Sehwag has been axed. “I would say he has only been rested. You do not drop a player of his stature.”
Viru has had an extremely rough time with the bat these past few weeks. Despite all his singular exploits of the past, he is neither Mahendra Singh Dhoni nor Sachin Tendulkar. So no concessions were made by the executioners that were lying in wait for him to slip up. Slip up he did, but to conclude that Sehwag’s days as an international batsman are over would be unfair not only to him but to the cause of the Indian team.
Murli Vijay, who on the back of a pitiful domestic season got a hundred in the Irani Trophy and, consequently, another Test call-up, finally rattled up some runs in the second Test match against Australia. Sehwag, on the other hand, failed yet again. We could see it coming.
The very ‘bold’ selectors – empowered no doubt by the carte blanche handed out to them by the BCCI president who also happens to be the Chennai Super Kings owner – did exactly what was expected of them. They brought the axe down on Viru without even deigning it fit to look for a replacement for the swashbuckler in the 15-member squad for the next two Tests against Australia.
India is playing the final two Tests of the ongoing series with a complement of 14 players. If Sehwag wasn’t going to be replaced with another player, what was the great hurry to get rid of him? There is obviously more to it than meets the eye. A rift with the captain, a question of attitude, a palpable slowing down of his reflexes with age and the disappearance of his uncanny hand-eye coordination are among the various reasons being cited for Sehwag’s exclusion. The question is: can he work his way back into the team with so much loaded against him?
“Of course, he can come back,” says Gaekwad. “He still has a lot of cricket left in him.” Kiran More seconds that: “He will certainly come back. He is the greatest opening batsman India has ever had along with Sunil Gavaskar. He has won many matches for India. A batsman who can hit a double century in a single day will always win matches for you. Is there anyone like him on the horizon?”
Having lost his place in the Indian Test team, Sehwag is being told in no uncertain terms that he does not fit into the selectors' plans for the future. That line of thinking is unlikely to change until Dhoni and his CSK cronies – Vijay, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja (Suresh Raina is currently out of favour) – rule the roost under a rather benevolent dispensation that gave the India captain the longest rope that a captain has ever been given in the history of cricket in this country – he lost 10 of his last 13 Test matches and yet retained the faith of the selectors. But as we said earlier, everybody isn’t born as lucky as Dhoni, not even the likes of Suni Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.
Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly, like everyone else who regards Sehwag as a special talent, did see Dhoni’s hand in Sehwag’s ouster. But he was quick to retract his statement. He may have had his reasons, but his surmise was bang on. Ganguly has, of course, asserted that Viru should have been persisted with because he is always only a single innings away from a match-winning, career-reviving knock.
But the selectors reserve all their patience for only a small charmed circle of cricketers who derive their clout from linkages forged outside the arena. They will not touch a Tendulkar even if he is well past his sell-by date. They will find innovative reasons to keep persisting with a Rohit Sharma in ODIs despite repeated failures. But they will use a completely different yardstick when the man in question is Sehwag.
So, have we seen the last of Virender Sehwag in the international arena? He was dropped from the ODI scheme of things earlier and now with his Test spot in doubt, is he out for good? On his part, he has expressed confidence that he has it in him to wrest back in spot in the Indian Test side. But as things stand, it looks a little difficult.
Sharma says the Delhi dasher would have to change his game drastically to extend his career, while More is of the opinion that he should keep playing the way he does. “I would always spend my money to watch Sehwag bat no matter what it costs,” says the former Indian wicket-keeper. “He is an outstanding batsman who is in a league of his own.”
With his long-time opening partner, Gautam Gambhir, also out in the cold, and the selectors claiming that they have their eyes on the future, it seems unlikely that Sehwag will be back in the mix unless a miracle intervenes.
Our cricket experts are obviously turning into clairvoyants who can see very, very far into the future. Sunil Gavaskar has recommended that Dhoni should continue as India’s captain until the 2019 World Cup. If Dhoni is the future of Indian cricket, Sehwag clearly isn’t.
Indian cricket has seen a few flamboyant stroke-makers in the past – the likes of Mushtaq Ali, CK Nayudu, Brijesh Patel and Sandeep Patil – come to mind, but there has been nobody who has had the kind of impact that Sehwag has had. He transformed Indian batting in a way that even Sachin Tendulkar never did.
“I have never seen a player like him in world cricket,” says Gaekwad. Sehwag has the fastest triple century in Test cricket under his belt. That innings, played against South Africa in Blomfontein, should rank among the greatest knocks ever. He got to 300 off just 278 balls. When he got out at 319, it was already the highest individual Test score registered at a strike rate of over 100. Sehwag is truly incomparable.
The tempo that he injected into India’s batting as a Test opener – his move from the middle-order to the top of the batting line-up was an inspired one – changed the team’s approach completely in games both at home and overseas and that helped India set a platform for big conquests on foreign soil.
Indian batsmen tend to be obsessed with statistics. Sehwag has never bothered to look up at the scoreboard – or at least that is the impression he gives thanks to the manner in which he goes about his job. Remember his awesome 195 against Australia on an opening day of a Test match in Melbourne in 2003? An ordinary batsman would have opted for five carefully taken singles to get to his double century. But not so Sehwag. He sought to clear the ropes and holed out in the deep. He walked back to the pavilion as if nothing had happened, his shoulders still upright and his gait still as easy as ever.
That has been the greatest attribute of Sehwag’s game – he can take the rough with the smooth with equal composure. He has therefore often been accused of not being ambitious enough. But why would one of the most entertaining batsmen the game has ever produced worry about little things like ambition if he can get two triple hundreds in Tests and join a small club of only four players, including Don Bradman and Brian Lara?
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