Fables from Virender Sehwag’s storied career
1 kg ladoos, Rs 11 & son
Late 90s, a grain-merchant from Najafgarh’s aanaj mandi, walks into AN Sharma’s academy at Vikaspuri. He had been told that his son, Bholu, hits the ball like no kid in the entire tehsil. The father handed Sharma things: A 1 kg box of ladoos, Rs 11 and his son. “Aaj se yeh ladka aapka hua (From today, he is your son),” he told coach. In years ahead, Sehwag Jr would give him fame, identity and stature.
Came, saw, conquered
Virender Sehwag, Bholi to friends, is padding up for a limited-overs school game where his team is chasing around 150 to win. Coach Sharma is worried. It’s not the target. He knows Bholi will achieve it on his own. The team needs to be ferried to another venue, not long after, for an afternoon game of another tournament. He tells Bholi, “Dekh lena”, who nods. Sharma asks half of the team, mostly bowlers, to pack their kits and follow him. On the way, the coach and the kids take a lunch break. After squeezing through a minor traffic snarl, they reach the venue for the second match of the day. To the collective disbelief of group, Bholi greets them there. “What happened, how come you are here?” asks the coach. “Dekh liya unko,” says Bholi, who had polished off the rivals in the same time in which his teammates finished their lazy lunch. He was to get a new name. Bholi was now Viru.
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Off the beaten track
Viru was never one to take the beaten path or get influenced by what others did. It was almost an obsession. “Everybody in my family had a Maruti. So I got a Santro. They told me it was a wrong choice,” he says.
Unique bowling advice
Never seen as a “thinking cricketer”, he did help players think about their game. As a leader, Sehwag wasn’t one for long meetings and over-analysis. During the final over of a tense IPL match, Delhi Daredevils pacer Umesh Yadav asked his skipper where he should bowl. “Bowler tu hai ya main?” shot back Sehwag.
Long story short
Last season, the Punjab Ranji coach asked Sehwag to give a pep talk to his boys after the game against Delhi. Sounding deeply indebted, the coach profusely praised Sehwag. He listed every of Sehwag’s statistical highs, stressed how he changed Indian batting for ever. Understandably, it took a while. Sehwag was getting restless, he finally go the mike. “My message will be much smaller than this long introduction,” he said. He wasn’t joking, it was. All Sehwag told the boys was to do what they wished and not get overburdened by coaches’ advice and train when they feel like.
Audio analysis
Indian team’s long-time video analyst tells this story about getting a Sehwag call post-dinner on match eve. “Can you come to my room, my computer not working wanted to see something on it,” said Sehwag. He rushes, expecting to see the opener keen to see the frame-by-frame action of a new pacer. “Viru bhai which bowlers you want to see?” inquires the computer man. “No yaar, can’t download this song.”
Indefensible mistake
According to many of his teammates, the last man you wanted to bump into in the dressing-room after getting out to a defensive shot was Sehwag. For, he would be waiting to pounce on you and quip, “Out hi hona tha, to shot maarke hota. Yeh defence karke kya faayda?”
Dangerous duo
Once in Johannesburg, Sehwag and opening partner Gautam Gambhir were advised by the hotel security to not step out late in the evening. To which Sehwag is learnt to have replied saying, “No there is no danger. We are the two most dangerous batsmen in the world.”
