Ranji Trophy 2015: For Virender Sehwag, it’s an away game at home

Virender Sehwag returns to the Feroz Shah Kotla where he will face Delhi — a team he had represented at the domestic level for two decades. (Source: Express photo by Amit Mehra)

Last season, on a cold and damp January morning, Virender Sehwag had walked towards the lively Lahli track with his trademark swagger. The ball was swinging, moving and climbing; this unpredictable behaviour being responsible for the 28/2 reading on the scoreboard. For Sehwag, the nip in the air, the devil in the track or the dressing room panic were adversaries he had often encountered, and defeated most times. That day, Sehwag won again. He scored 147.

He was then in Delhi colours, a stalwart with a reputation of changing the mood of this team mate or the match situation within hours. He finished the season with more than 500 runs, his memorable Lahli knock probably the highlight of Delhi’s forgettable season.

jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery('.rel-article').bxSlider({ maxSlides: 6, slideMargin: 3 }); });

Few would have expected that almost nine months later, Sehwag, 37 now, would be playing for the team against whom he had scored that magnificent 147. Now leading Haryana, he takes on a team he represented for more than two decades and scored close to 10,000 runs.

Spotted as the wonder boy from Najafgarh who hit sixes at will, Sehwag has moved to the other side.

Late in life, Sehwag has junked the old and taken a new challenge. As a junior cricketer, he would change buses, jostle for space in shared auto-rickshaws to travel from his home on the Delhi-Haryana border to be play home games at Kotla. These days, when Haryana plays at home, he drives from South Delhi to Lahli.

So for Sehwag and Delhi, this isn’t just another Ranji Trophy tie.

There are many among the highly-opinionated and deeply-divided Delhi cricket officials who say that Sehwag has a point to prove. They are those who blame their rivals in DDCA for letting the Delhi stalwart move to Haryana.

The man in the spotlight avoided such questions, he didn’t speak on the match eve. He went about his training methodically before going inside the ‘away’ dressing room.

Delhi coach Vijay Dahiya, probably wanting his team to concentrate on the crucial game, chose to play down the Sehwag hype.

“This match is not about Sehwag. It’s a match between two teams…that’s how I look at it. If somebody plays as an individual it is a different thing…as far as we are concerned, we will play as a team,” said Dahiya when asked about the former India opener.

Even if one takes the intrigue out of the contest, the Delhi-Haryana game offers an exciting face-off. Just last week, Ishant Sharma hit his stride against Vidarbha at the same venue. The 27-year-old bowled with pace and got disconcerting bounce from a placid Kotla track.

Finishing with match figures of 9/47, he ran through Vidarbha’s line-up in both innings. On the other hand, Sehwag flew off the blocks this season, scoring an entertaining 92 against Maharashtra. Sehwag facing Ishant Sharma will be a humdinger.

At the end of last game, Ishant was asked about his plans to counter Sehwag. He shot back, “The only way to keep him (Viru) quiet is to get him out early.” Delhi will be making three changes for this game.

Parvinder Awana, Pawan Suyal and all-rounder Yogesh Nagar will be replacing Sumit Narwal, Sarang Rawat and Vaibhav Rawal, who took the field against Vidarbha.

Talking about the track, the game will be played on the same docile and easy paced strip that hosted Vidarbha three days back. Playing two away games at the start of the season is never going to be easy.

Haryana are on the back foot after having conceded three points to Maharashtra in their previous game. They will banking on Sehwag to be at home at Kotla.