Sehwag the hero

If violence could ever be pleasing to eyes, it can only be on a cricket field. And Virender Sehwag is one of its finest exponents in contemporary cricket.


After giving the first hour to the bowlers, Viru discarded benevolence like a sweaty pair of gloves and plundered the Lankan attack with impunity. © AFP


Forget spectators for a while, some of the former cricketers of distinction were glued to their seats, watching the Nawab of Najafgarh in one of his wonderfully violent mood. One has rarely seen a piece of willow flattening the morale and courage of 11 men so decisively.

Men of cricketing honours, who describe the game to millions of television audiences, had decided to throw their equanimity and poise out of the window for a while; such was the brilliance and audacity of Sehwag’s knock of 293.

“Everyone in the commentary box was just stunned and amazed at what he did. To carry on like that for so long was unbelievable. The audacity and tempo with which he was batting, carving out reverse sweeps and a wide array of shots, was amazing. I don’t think I’ve seen an innings with so much audacity and dare,” said the usually unflappable Ravi Shastri, former India captain.

The sentiments weren’t any different for India’s former leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, “All of us were simply glued to our seats while watching him bat. We commentators were not even talking to each other because something like this doesn’t happen every day. We were all going crazy, watching Sehwag hitting the ball out of the park. We all were at the edge of our seats to find out what’s going to happen next.”

So, was it that the Lankan bowlers decided to bowl all the bad balls of their careers on that day? “No ways! Sehwag made the balls look bad. There were a lot of balls he hit from the good-length area, which was quite incredible,” said Sivaramakrishnan.

Shastri had his very own explanation. “The problem with him is that his bad balls are good balls for other players.” If only that’s a problem.

Muttiah Muralitharan, perhaps the greatest off-spinner of all time, never looked so ordinary for so long. Five spells of 18 overs in a day without a wicket is something that mustn’t have happened to Murali very often. With 788 Test wickets in his kitty, he averages six wickets in a game, but day-two of Mumbai Test was different. On the day, Sehwag’s willow was getting its fuel straight from Tarapur nuclear plant; Murali had no chance