If it were possible, Virender Sehwag
would have gone from 94 Tests to 100 in one match. That's what he
usually wants to do once he reaches 94 in a Test innings. Even if it
means risking getting stumped on 99
off the first ball he is facing from a debutant spinner. If he had hit a
six of caps when 94 not out, Sehwag fans - and I am one of them - would
have been able to stop facts from coming in the way of a good story.
Those facts that were driven home during his struggles in Australia.
Hard as you tried, you couldn't live in denial and shrug it off by
saying, "That's the way he plays." There, he even tried to buckle down
for the team's good but was simply not good enough. Against the moving,
bouncing new ball, his minimal footwork proved inadequate. The bowlers
no longer feared bowling to him, especially if they could get it to rise
rib high or move after pitching. With every confused dismissal, Sehwag
reminded you he had gone from Adelaide to Adelaide without a century outside Asia in four years.
During the same period, though, Sehwag delighted with his dominance in Asia. He scored his second triple-century, in Chennai, plundered 293 of the most delightful runs in Mumbai, 201 of the most difficult ones in Galle, and even Usain-Bolted
the record for the highest score in ODIs, a format he has never quite
mastered. On numerous other occasions Sehwag stole results from the jaws
of draws through his strike-rate in India's first innings. Often he
targeted the best bowlers in the opposition so hard he practically
eliminated them. To overlook this impact will be to stop facts from
coming in the way of a depressing story.
The Sehwag story is anything but depressing. It is, for the most part,
one of unabashed joy, of lack of inhibition, of a reminder that nine
fielders can cover only so much of the field, of redefining good and bad
balls, of playing scarcely believable shots with a bat whose inside
edge is visible only to the bowler, of daring left-arm spinners to give
up negative tactics with the promise that he will hit them for a six off
the first ball they bowl from round the stumps, of pulling through
mid-off to counter deep-square fields and short and wide bowling and
later saying he can't play boring cricket, of failing when trying to go
from 195 to 201 in one hit but still trying it in future at 295, of a
reminder that cricket is just a sport after all.
You might look at Sehwag struggling in certain conditions - for just
four of his 12 years, lest it be forgotten - and flourishing in certain
others (you just can't ignore the number of big centuries he has scored
at that strike rate) and call him a product of his times. You couldn't
be more wrong.
Sehwag is not a product of his time; his times are a product of him.
That's one box ticked for sure on the greatness list. He didn't just
redefine opening in Tests, he did so without being an opener by
training. You see openers - Watson, Gayle, Dilshan, Warner - trying to
intimidate bowlers today. Sehwag started it. And he started it when
asked to open the innings because the Indian middle order, his preferred
station, was too packed. He gave meaning to the vague term "staying
beside the line of the ball". To do it once in a while is okay, but you
don't do it with his alarming regularity by fluke. He has scored six
centuries at more than a run-a-ball, and taken three of them past 250.
Three of the five fastest double-centuries, and five of the top 10,
belong to him. He has done it not through brute strength, but through
delightful manipulation of fields.
Sehwag batted as if meditating. "You just react to the ball," he once
told me. "If the ball is there to be hit, you just hit it. Don't worry
that this is a Test or one-dayer or T20. You just hit it. Because it's
your routine. Every time you practise in the nets, you just go and see
the ball and hit the ball. You are not worried about 'what if I get
out'. You are not worried about a four or a sixer, one or two. You just
hit the ball. And enjoy the sound. At the end of the day if you hit the
ball or defend the ball, you love the sound that comes when the ball
hits the bat."
Sehwag had me by then. As if enlightened, I added: "And that sound won't
come when you are leaving the ball…" Like an arithmetic teacher who had
just shown me how to add two and two, he smiled benevolently and said:
"Exactly."
How simple life would have been if the man who brought us batting
nirvana didn't frustrate us so. If he hadn't picked the IPL over Tests
in the West Indies and England. This was Dylan gone electric. Perhaps
Sehwag thought he could fit it all in. Perhaps he thought he could get
the best of both worlds: take the IPL money, play Tests in England and
give the West Indies a miss. Perhaps he did become a product of his time
after all. He is no god, he is human like all of us. If he did pick
money over Tests, perhaps he should be allowed to make all the money he
wants. "Don't worry this is Test or one-day or T20," he said, remember?
When it comes to judging greatness, though, history won't be as kind. It
will tell you Sehwag had one good tour each of Australia, England,
South Africa and New Zealand, and followed up with a bad one to each of
those countries. He is a man who made a mockery of statistics but will
not be allowed to hide behind them, behind that average of 51 after 99
Tests.
We will rate him by his impact, by his innovation, by his entertainment.
Sehwag has brought us all of that, except only in certain conditions
over the last third of his career. On the eve of his 100th Test
appearance, do we let that last third outside Asia cloud our view of
Sehwag? Or do we look beyond the immediate and revel in all the joy he
has brought us over the rest of his career? Or do we see his hundred in
his 99th Test as yet more proof of his positive attitude, that he can
come back from all that and start stealing results from the jaws of
draws as if nothing was amiss?
We know what Sehwag would do. Take a deep breath, sing a tune to
himself, try to clear his mind of all thoughts, and just see the next
ball and hit it. And enjoy the sound.
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