Virendra Sehwag is the kind of coach the youngsters need today: Sports psychologist Rudi Webster
Virender and I never spoke about Greg. I was obviously aware of the atmosphere in the Indian team in 2006 when Greg Chappell approached me to help his boys. It wasn’t the best. And in my opinion, the most affected by all that was going on was Virender Sehwag.
Our first meeting happened in a hotel in Trinidad and went on for four hours. It was Viru who did most of the talking. He is a humorous man, and would keep chipping in with something funny. At the end of it, he looked refreshed, and he said, “Doc, I am going to make a lot of runs now.” Like he promised, he went to St Lucia and smashed a 180 in the second Test of that series. What a knock it was!
I bumped into Greg a few days later and he asked me, “What the hell did you do with him? Whatever it is, it’s working amazingly. Keep at it.” The truth was the best thing Viru and I did was not to bring up Greg during our session. I recognized that it was a problem, and rather than dig into it, we tried to look for a solution. All Viru needed was to be able to think freely again. Behind the famous nonchalant attitude, I found an emotional man, but one who could mask it better than most.
The greatest compliment I’ve ever received from a client came from a former great Australian Rules Football champion who said, “Rudi you didn’t teach me anything. But what you did do very successfully was clear all the crap from my head.” That’s exactly what Viru needed at that stage. He was in a confused state of mind, and needed the crap to be cleared out as crude as it sounds.
Viru’s a lot like Viv Richards, who I worked a lot with during my time with the West Indies team. They are both geniuses and fantastic human beings. Viru is arguably the best striker of a cricket ball the game has seen, maybe even better than Richards and Garry Sobers. He also was aware of how intimidated bowlers were by him. Viv would walk in and say, “I’m the boss, and if it’s my day the bowlers are in trouble.” Viru was similar but too nice a man to put it across in that way. But he knew that when he was in control, no bowler could stop him.
Yet at the same time, he is someone like Viv whose confidence can go down if they are distracted by too many thoughts being instilled into their head. You don’t need to tell Viru what to do. He could find solutions for himself because he knew and understood his game like nobody else. His greatest strength was that he could regain lost confidence in the space of a few deliveries unlike lesser batsman who might require a whole series to do so.
We live in an era where cricket coaching has become so complicated. Viru is exactly the kind of coach the younger generation needs today. Someone who will get rid of all the fuss and create an environment that will encourage talent to express itself rather than be bogged down by conventions. We all don’t walk the same way. We all don’t run the same way. Why is it that all kids today are expected to bat the same way like they are clones? It needs to change. And who better than Viru to bring about that revolution, this time in the avatar of a coach.
