If you pick the ball early, feet don’t matter much: Virender Sehwag
In a chat with Sandeep Dwivedi — before the World Cup earlier this year — Virender Sehwag spoke about his approach to batting, what made Muralitharan a tough bowler to pick and why making big scores earns more respect than hitting sixes. Excerpts.
Do you think coaches these days are over-analysing the game? Your first coach Mr AN Sharma always kept things simple.
I feel hitting the ball is the most important thing in batting. Picking the ball early is important. If you are picking it early and hitting the ball, I don’t think it matters much whether your feet are in the right place or your head is in the right place. Till the time you are hitting the ball down the ground, meeting the ball nicely, and you’re hitting fours and sixes you are okay. Players, generally, watch their videos to find out their mistakes. I was watching my videos just to enjoy my boundaries.
Gautam Gambhir once said that if he gets out in the nets, he gets disturbed. So he sees to it that he doesn’t lose his wicket. You, on the other hand, are happy even if you are dismissed 10 times, for Gambhir claims you walk out recalling all the good shots you have played.
I’m going into the nets with a purpose. Like I want to improve the cover-drive. I want to improve the cut-shot. The step out shot over covers or mid-wicket. I was concentrating and not worrying if the ball will get me out or not. Net practice is to improve your game. If I play a shot off every ball, only then can I improve my game. But sometimes, I take a dare with bowlers. If a bowler gets me out, I will give him a bat or a pad or a shoe. But if I don’t get out, I will bat for an hour. If I get out on first ball, the bowler who dismissed me will get a reward. So, there is a challenge for the bowlers also.
So it doesn’t bother you that you got out three times on the eve of a match?
What is more important – scoring runs or getting out in the nets? For me it is important to improve my batting and what I want to achieve during that session.
How did you react when people advised you with your game?
Those that help you, you adopt. The rest you erase. The only suggestion I picked up was from Srikkanth or Gavaskar. One of them told me to stand on middle and off. Don’t move your feet. Just cover your wickets. I did that and scored a lot of runs. If you are standing on off-stump, every ball is close to you. Others said go back and across, some said use your left foot and others said bring your bat from a certain angle. There were so many but the right one was for me to stand on middle and off. I still do that. Sometimes I stand on off and even walk across to go closer to the ball.
Has there ever been pressure on you to entertain?
I am not bothered about the crowd. People come to watch me. They are coming with a risk. Before they reach the stadium, Sehwag might have gotten out and gone into the dressing-room. It happened many times. Why should I bother? I didn’t invite them. I invited my friends during the World Cup. I scored 30-odd runs. I should control my mind rather than think about people and my reputation.
Isn’t it tempting for you, though? Don’t you ever think that there is this crowd here and I have to put up a show?
Never. It is only to do with scoring runs, surviving. In the first-half (of my career), I was worried about my place. I wanted to score at least 50 so that nobody could drop me. When I had a stable place, then I started thinking about scoring big runs, big 100s. In Australia on my first tour, Rahul Dravid had scored a big hundred. And Shivlal Yadav said, “Look how much respect he is getting. If you score big runs, you’ll also get this respect.” And then I started scoring big hundreds.
Do big sixes not get you respect?
It’s a fact that if you start scoring big hundreds, people will give you respect. Now they say, “Wow! he is the only one who has scored a triple century for India”. That is the kind of respect that I am getting from players. On ‘Comedy Nights with Kapil’ TV show, even Sunil Gavaskar bowed to me. That’s because of that triple-century. It’s not because I hit a six. It’s because of the 300 that I made with a six. The kind of respect you get when you score 200, 250 or 300. That’s what I told Rohit Sharma once. I asked him how many double hundreds or triple hundreds he has in first-class cricket. He said “none”. I said go and score. The moment he scored a triple century, he called me. Very good, I said, now you will get picked for Tests. Now everybody is talking about Rohit Sharma.
Back in 2008 during the Sri Lanka series, you almost scored a 100 before lunch (at Galle). It was the time when Ajantha Mendis was this mystery bowler that no one could fathom. What was your plan like?
I was picking the ball early. I knew Mendis had three balls. A googly, a carrom ball and an off spinner. His field set was so attacking that I had a lot of gaps to play my strokes. All I had to do was pick it. I knew if he bowled a googly, his little finger would go up and the moment he did that I stepped out and hit him for four or six. The moment he bent all his fingers, I knew it was an off-spinner. And I was ready for the sweep. Whenever he showed me just the index finger, I knew it was the carrom ball. If you see closely you’re picking from his hand. Sachin Tendulkar never got out to him. He was picking the ball too. Some batsmen pick from the hand, some pick from the pitch. If you do the former you have more time to react.
Somebody like Shoaib Akhtar, did he give you a chance to pick from the hand?
Yes, he had a different technique to bowl a bouncer and different technique to bowl a yorker. And Tendulkar noticed these things and he told me and asked me to watch his videos. His hand comes in such a way that he bowls reverse-swing or a yorker. Then if it comes from the other direction, then it’s a bouncer. We have to be smart. We had to watch videos over and over again to get it right.
Did you and Sachin watch these videos together?
Never. I was watching my videos for enjoyment. I couldn’t sit with another player. The video-analyst was there. And our timings were different. Sachin would see them at different times.
Was any bowler tough to pick for you?
(Muttiah) Muralitharan. Because of his action, it was very difficult to pick his doosra. Sachin once told me that if his thumb is up, he will bowl doosra, but because of his darker complexion, I was never able to spot it. After that I decided whatever and wherever he bowls I will drive through covers or push it towards point. That worked.
But isn’t there a risk of edging the ball that went the other way?
And I did. But fielders weren’t ready to catch them. Mahela Jayawardene dropped couple of catches. If you look at my double-hundred in Galle, there were two chances but Mahela couldn’t react. Because the ball came too quickly at them. Because I swung so hard and Muralitharan was bowling quick. The edges flew.
