As Ricky Ponting’s men tour India next month hoping to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the opponent they have to subdue is not so much the classy run-machine Sachin Tendulkar or their pet hate Harbhajan Singh. It is the daredevil opening batsman Virender Sehwag.
In the low-scoring tri-nation series in Dumbulla, Sri Lanka last week, Sehwag topped the aggregate, average and strike-rate and was adjudged Player of the Series.
Be it a Test match, a one-day international or a Twenty20 big bash, he is the spectators’ delight, a sixomaniac who skies the ball whether he is on naught or 99. Also he has the twenty-twenty vision to see the ball a fraction earlier than most batsmen. Is he a genius or a dare-devil?
He hardly moves his feet as he jumps out and a sixer climbs the sky. Then he drives the ball effortlessly straight or through the covers a-la Ponting as the bowlers sigh: How do you solve a problem like Virender Sehwag?
He was dropped in the first two Tests against Australia in the controversial bollyline 2007-08 series in Australia. But after heeding to Ian Chappell’s advice Anil Kumble picked him in the next two and he scored 151 in the final Adelaide Test.
Australian spectators love his unorthodox batting as much as they cheer the elegant stroke-play of Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.
The Melbourne crowd had the thrill of watching dynamic opener Sehwag in full flight in the December 2003 Test. For five hours he enthralled the Boxing Day crowd of 62,600 by belting five sixes and 25 fours in his spectacular 195. Despite his fireworks India lost.
Sehwag arrived on the Test scene with a characteristic flourish. In his debut he batted at number 6 and scored 105 adding 222 runs with his hero Tendulkar for the fifth wicket after India was tottering at 4-68. This was against South Africa in the Bloemfontein Test of November 2001.
But soon he emerged as his own man.
In the 2004 Multan Test against Pakistan, as Tendulkar played a supporting role, Sehwag romped to 309, the first triple century by an Indian. And he brought it up with a six.
Two Tests and three months ago in Melbourne, he had been dismissed trying the same stroke five runs short of what would have been his first Test double-hundred.
At Multan Sehwag thrashed six sixes and 39 fours in his epic 309 off 375 balls.
His highest score is 319 at a strike-rate of 105 against South Africa in the March 2008 Chennai Test. It included five sixes and 42 fours. He had hammered 257 runs in a day.
He holds the Indian record for highest number of Test double-hundreds (seven) and came within seven runs of becoming the first batsman ever to register three triple-hundreds.
That innings of 293, against Sri Lanka in Mumbai last December, “epitomised the Sehwag brand of batsmanship: a mix of imagination, daring, power, skills, and clarity of vision,” to quote Sambit Bal in CricInfo.
Playing by instinct rather than by the book, Virender Sehwag has amassed 7039 runs at an average of 54.14 and strike-rate of 81.56, belting 79 sixes in 79 Tests.
That is a six every Test. Will he become the second batsman after Australia’s scintillating sensation Adam Gilchrist to smack 100 sixes in Test annals? As Sehwag is 31, he has age on his side.
The top seven six smashers in Test annals are Gilchrist (100 sixes in 96 Tests), West Indian Brian Lara (88 in 131), New Zealander Chris Cairns (87 in 62, hitting a record 1.4 sixes per Test), Windies legend Viv Richards (84 in 121), England’s Andrew Flintoff (82 in 79), Australia’s Matthew Hayden (82 in 103), and Virender Sehwag (79 in 79).
It may be noted that all these six-hitters are from post-1970s period. Would they have been as prolific if the boundary lines were not shortened in recent decades?
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