PRIMAL PEDIGREE

This was a piece I had penned back in April. Now that Virender Sehwag has again demonstrated how he can swing matches single-handedly with an astonishing 293 (shame that he couldn't get to be the first player to get to 3 triple centuries, but don't bet against him) against Sri Lanka in the third test match at Mumbai, it is an apt time to share this unpublished piece of work celebrating the force of nature that is Viru!

THE third match in the second season of the Indian Premier League presented a very peculiar situation for Virender Sehwag, the Delhi Daredevils skipper. In a match already shortened to 12 overs a side, the Kings XI Punjab had put up 104 runs on the board and rain and the intervention of Messer’s Duckworth and Lewis were imminent. Suddenly, the Daredevils were chasing 60 odd runs in a six – six! – over game. Unperturbed, Sehwag did not put a foot wrong or change his approach even a wee bit as Delhi romped home in an innings as short as a commercial break! And that is the value of Virender Sehwag, the matchwinner. He can win you test matches, he can chase down targets in one day matches with unbelievable ease and his mental make up and physical aggression is just perfect for the Twenty20 version too. Turns out, he can even win you six over contests. In terms of match winning and sheer impact on the game, in modern times there simply isn’t anyone who comes close to the marauder from Delhi. Wisden chose him as the ‘Leading Cricketer in the World’ for 2008, and a run through of what he achieved in that year, not just in terms of statistics but sheer game changing power, is enough to illustrate the point. Viru is a match winner, one whose mould was destroyed once they made him. Writes Ravi Shastri in Wisden, ‘Virender Sehwag is a marvel of modern times, a genius who has confounded conventional wisdom, whose daring is now a part of cricket's folklore’.

You can take a look at the stats for evidence. His improved figures (his ODI average jumps an amazing 27 points in wins since 1^st May 2007) in wins bear out his contribution, but then, with Sehwag numbers never capture the whole story. Audacity and gumption are things that are not taught at coaching clinics and neither are they measurable through an average or a strike rate. Consider this stat – In matches won while chasing in a one day international (since May 2007) his average stands at a whooping 73.50 in 9 matches. Numbers can merely vaguely reflect the kind of impression that he’s left on every venue he’s played his cricket in. There is no denying that India’s recent dominance at home and brilliance abroad has been fuelled by a hungry and lethal bowling attack, a solid middle order batting base, an astute captain and generally sharper fielding. But just look back at 2008 and you realize the Sehwag signature is there all over. A phenomenal strike rate of 85 per 100 balls in Test (yes, Test!) cricket, and 120 in One Day Internationals are testimony to how he can change things, and change them quick! When he’s at the crease, time becomes a blur. There was the fastest triple century in Test history against South Africa, a stunning effort by any standards (‘After 200 runs, I was very tired and wanted to score runs quickly but Rahul Dravid told me that if you can hold on and stay there for a while and use this lifetime opportunity to score your second triple hundred…so I played my game patiently and it worked in my favor’ ) followed by a double hundred in a Test in Sri Lanka where the rest of the batsmen struggled to even get to fifty. Paradoxically, Sehwag hasn’t been all about an ephemeral ‘Crash! Boom! Bang!’ in Tests, 11 of his 15 Test hundreds are scores of 150+.

The debate has often raged as to whether Sehwag is the greatest Indian batsman. It’s a little preposterous to propose that at this moment, but he definitely belongs to a class of one – a unique force of nature that’s a marvelous mixture of technique and tenacity, a combination where the cerebral meets the cocky. His own philosophy and approach towards the game is incredibly simple and clutter free. When asked about his approach at dominating bowlers most of the time he said, ‘We played with the 20-20 format when I was a little boy and all I did was apply the same mindset to international cricket.’ How’s that for simplicity? Sure, living on the edge like he does at the crease has its disadvantages, but if he were to let those concerns rule, we would all be missing the point. He has altered the psychological underpinnings of putting bat to ball, just calling it aggression would be doing his attitude and approach a disservice. He is a performer so powerful that it’s impossible to imagine every form of the game without him.

Virender Sehwag is about testing, what a TV program in the 1980s called ‘The Outer Limits’. He’s the mad scientist of world cricket, unafraid to experiment and back his guts, consequences be damned. After all, there is a bit of madness in every genius.