Oh right – we know very well that Virender Sehwag keeps his recently repopulated head remarkably still; we know he’s got the ability to divorce past from the present and future, even if they’re split by a second or a narrow escape off a good ball; we know he’s got very quick hands and a quicker eye; we know his brain is free of cobwebs of excessive thought over technique; we know he’s unacquainted with indecision; we know his cricketing ethos is grounded on nonchalance of the stereotype Jat.
We know all that – yet, Virender Sehwag remains a thing of wonder and speculation, a mystery, a batsman impossible to reduce into comprehension by mere words.
Sehwag represents joyous, amateur insouciance so very rare in professional sport; the essence of Sehwag is, perhaps, brilliant indifference to his own genius, or the effects of it on a cricket match.
But Sehwag spurns labels – he is one big, knotty problem of modern cricket, confounding critics more than bowlers.
The foremost inexplicable question over him is just how a batsman who plays so many strokes – right off the blocks, off the new ball too – can rack up so many big knocks at the international level?
You’d expect someone who’s less prone to flirting with danger to get the really big scores, like a triple-century, right? Someone like Rahul Dravid from the current era, or Sanjay Manjrekar or Sunil Gavaskar or Dilip Vengsarkar or Mohinder Amarnath from the last quarter of a century.
Yet, it’s Sehwag who’s got the highest score for India in a Test innings; it’s Sehwag who’s got two triple-centuries. The smallest of his last 13 centuries is the 131 he scored in the previous Test at Kanpur. He’s got six scores over 200 – two of them triple centuries; he’s got three scores between 125 and 150. All of it scored at great high pace, at 80.48 runs per 100 balls. This is his most remarkable achievement, especially as he happens to be an opener – blending breakneck speed with danger and yet emerging with longevity, not early cricketing demise.
A really long innings would, it would appear, be an effort of accumulation and unending endurance. Sehwag makes his long innings look both effortless and undersized – he gets his 200s and 300s faster than anyone else in memory or record books.
A handy comparison with recent triple-tons will show this. Brian Lara’s 400 against England came at 68.72 per 100 balls; Matthew Hayden got 380 against Zimbabwe at 86.95; Lara’s 375 against England came at 69.70; Mahela Jayawardene’s 374 against Zimbabwe at 65.38; Sanath Jayasuriya got his 340 against India at 58.82; Inzamam-ul-Haq got 329 against New Zealand at 75.45. Even Chris Gayle was way below Sehwag’s pace when he got 317 against South Africa, with a strike rate of 65.63.
Sehwag, of course, already owns the quickest triple-century recorded, reaching 300 off 278 balls against South Africa, ending with 319 off 304, for a strike rate of 104.93. At any level of cricket, it’s amazing. For an opener in Test cricket, this is almost a lie.
Sehwag was much slower when he got his first triple, 309 off 375 balls (at 82.40) against Pakistan in 2004.
In Mumbai on Thursday, he came close to getting 300 runs in one day, and he’ll resume at 284 on Friday morning. He is looking good for his third triple century.
Openers are advised to take the shine off the ball with careful play; Sehwag tries to take the hide off it.
An opener in Test cricket, with a game and mind of Sehwag – a great strokeplayer fearless of failure – actually can get tons of runs in Test cricket, with its close catchers and attacking fields and increasingly flatter pitches. Yet the fact that there’s none like him – save perhaps Sanath Jayasuriya – shows how difficult it is to put this notion into action.
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When he crosses 100, Sehwag seems to be the batsman to bet on to get a double century – or even a triple, from the way he played on Thursday. That statement is hyperbolic and seemingly beyond possibility, but when one’s watching Sehwag, the inexplicable and the impossible seem possible.
