Viruvian man — Modern art
No other modern-day cricketer gave as much joy to the watcher as Sehwag did. Other greats triggered admiration, respect, fanboyism, and in rare times even patriotic pride, but Sehwag reduced you to a giggle. No one else made one forget an intense match situation. He made us throw back our heads and laugh. Batsmen who managed to do that were usually lesser players — a Shahid Afridi or a Kris Srikkanth, but Sehwag had astonishing skills that would put him in most people’s all-time eleven. And yet, he forever retained, and transmitted, that childish joy of gully cricket.
It’s almost a given that a man who bats with such abandon cannot be consistent. Sehwag has defied that notion and therein lies his uniqueness. A match was to be won and lost and many a great batsman dragged us into that intensity along with them but Sehwag was something else. The stadium suddenly transformed into a mohalla, and an international contest felt like street cricket. To regurgitate an old line, without his outrageous skills, he would be Srikkanth or Jayasuriya at best, and without that mind, he wouldn’t be Sehwag at all.
It wasn’t just us the viewer but he triggered similar reactions in fellow cricketers. Sample this from MS Dhoni, from 2005, about the time he had announced himself with a furious 148. “I feel quite relaxed when I am batting with Sehwag. With him I can say, “Paaji fine leg andar bula liya, chauka hai”. L Balaji, the former India bowler, tells a personal story of being awed by the man during that famous Melbourne knock of 195 in a single day’s batting. Balaji was the 12th man then, and remembers being sent down by John Wright to pass on a last-minute message to Sehwag who was going down to bat after lunch. Until then, the Australian bowlers had the upper hand, nailing Sehwag and Aakash Chopra with their aggression.
“It was what we say a body-line attack and I remember Chopra was actually dizzy during the break after being hit on the body and head,” Balaji says. Wright told him to tell Sehwag to please take it easy, and careful, in the first 10-20 minutes post lunch. “I ran to tell Sehwag who nodded his head earnestly and said, ‘ok ok’. And I came back to sit next to Wright. In the first over, Sehwag ran down the track and hit a huge six off Stuart Macgill and Wright turned to me and said, ‘What the f*** did you tell him?! Did you pass on my message correctly?! That was Sehwag, for you. The best part was the dressing room atmosphere when he was out there batting. Never have I seen and heard so much laughter in a dressing room in a Test match!”
Astonishing skill
It’s to his astonishing skill that created such reactions in team-mates that we must return. Often, Sehwag does something outrageously ridiculous. A ball pinging the legs would be crashed through covers. With touch artists like Laxman or Azharuddin, flicking balls from outside off to leg was neither a risk nor showmanship. It was utterly natural for them to do. It was within their language of batting; they couldn’t help but play it. Artists do what they must. But when Sehwag does those audacious inside-out drives, they weren’t totally instinctive. It was wilful. Until then, he might have been just whipping to the on side, but when the gaps get filled up, and when a bowler changes his line to restrict runs, Sehwag then starts to dole out such shots, deliberately. His definition of a boundary ball is different from others. His calculation of risk in such a shot was awe-inspiring. An adventurer does what he must.
Another thing that stood out was his body language. It’s such a big theme with attacking batsmen; many almost cultivate a kind of bossiness. It wasn’t just how they batted but how they walked around the middle, in between the deliveries, that we remember them by, and how they wanted to be seen by the opposition. Viv Richards swaggered, Mathew Hayden snarled, Adam Gilchrist had this restless energy, and Chris Gayle ubercool. Sehwag, on the other hand, remained calm, almost jovial. He never looked intense or veered to its extreme of coolness. He neither drew strength or inspiration with verbal duels with bowlers, nor did he avoid them. He just batted, chatted — with the umpire, his partner, a friendly fielder or a bowler and he hummed tunes in between deliveries. It was the most relaxed that a top-level cricketer can ever be in the cauldron of international cricket. It came from unbelievable self-confidence — a kind of amateurish cheekiness that can perhaps only come from a man whose nickname as a child at home was “Bholi” (innocence).
Consummate entertainer
It’s in the reaction of fans that Sehwag the batsman must be placed. In his initial days as India cricketer, they said he batted like Tendulkar. As the years progressed, and Tendulkar, understandably underwent a transformation, they began to wish that Tendulkar would play like him. It was perhaps the greatest tribute that can be bestowed on the entertainer that he was.
Who better than himself to summarise his batting philosophy, though? Pradeep Sangwan, the Delhi mediumpacer, tells this delightful tale. Apparently, many a batsman would come up to Sehwag for advice, and would be told, “Wicket mein aaya to roko, baki sab tthoko! (Stop the ones in line with stumps, smash everything else — the humour lost in translation but hopefully not its awe-inspiring simpleness).
Unsurprisingly, the down years came near the end, but it still came as a surprise that it hadn’t come earlier for a batsman who relied so much on eye-hand coordination (pet peeve alert— the conventional hand-eye seems to be in reverse). To his credit, he tried hard. Eyes hid behind uncool spectacles, time was spent in front of video screens to spot problems, and later at nets, but fortune wouldn’t change. Good times refused to come back but he remained the same. Asked once if he missed being out of Indian team, he is supposed to have said, “And whose loss is that?!”
