Saturday 2 July 2011

Importance of Sehwag

Will the selectors go in with a semi fit Virender Sehwag in place of a fully fit young indian opener? As the selection committee sits today to select the Indian squad for the 4 test match series in England this July, this will be the one major head-ache for them. While the rest of the squad looks predictable with Tendulkar, Gambhir, Zaheer and Sreesanth expected to comeback, the only uncertainity would be Sehwag's selection. But why should the selectors go in with a 70-80% fir Sehwag?

Well this question would be correctly answered by the English bowlers. Sehwag in his career has dramatically influenced opposition bowler's thinkings and plans. Even though Indian line-up would be studded with classic legends like Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman who might play better than him in the series but a Sehwag is needed at the top to rattle the opposition. Sehwag can give you the psychological advantage in just a session, he can give hopes of winning you a test match on the first day and he can well destroy a bowler for the rest of the series in the first test itself.

 The selectors know even if Sehwag struggles in England due to fitness related issues his inclusion in the team would heavily affect the plans of English bowlers and thus other players like Tendulkar and Dravid would be at ease to silently kill the opoosition. Its the Sehwag effect that has transformed India and India are no world champs without him. After Jayasuriya, he is the one who has reformed the art of batting. He has demolished many world class bowlers minus any technique. The coaches would never let their students bat like Sehwag but still the "nawab of najafgarh" has emerged as the most feared batsman in world cricket today. Sehwag has got this ability from probably the gully cricket in Delhi which has this notion of slambang fast paced cricket where missing a ball is pretty much equivalent to giving away your wicket. This taught Sehwag to hit any kind of ball that comes to him to the boundary. He shamelessly hits even the good balls and the good bowlers. That is what makes him Sehwag and India dont want to miss him on this tour which everyone thinks would be India's test of whether they truly deserve the number one spot or not. This answers the question as to why the selectors might opt for an unfit Virender Sehwag.

2 comments:

  1. The point to note is Sehwg has enjoyed limited success in England. And this is a still recovering Viru who has been picked to tour. nevertheless, one hopes this will be Sehwag's best tour yet of England.

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  2. well sehwag does n't seem to to care about past records or bowlers or things like that. If he finds his good touch england would simply be in trouble thats why even a recovering viru would be so useful.

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