Sehwag in Auckland: Proof of Tendulkar's Uselessness

If ever we needed a reminder of the difference between Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, this was it.

Amid all the calls for Sehwag being better than the Little Master, how painful would this be for the people calling him the best in the world? A quick-fire inning of 40 and his team bows out for a miserly 149.

I’m not a big fan of team India. I don’t pretend to be one, either. They are still the only team I follow day in and day out. That is of course because of that “tiny midget” who bats at number four. Yeah, that man who is so overrated. God.

Can you imagine what a useless hand he would have played in this inning if it had been him instead of Sehwag?

Totally dry, hardly any boundaries, and you may as well forget about sixers! It would have been one of the dullest innings you would ever have the misfortune of seeing. He would probably use up a hundred or more deliveries, but still score at a strike rate of around 70 percent.

The audacity, we would all be screaming the next day. The entire team doesn’t take up as many deliveries put together, what gives this guy the right to stand up and play a dogged inning like that! He should retire! He can’t play anymore!

Look at that, takes up a 149 balls and still makes only 99!

We need fresher legs; Tendulkar should have retired gracefully after the 2003 World Cup.

Yeah, we would all much rather prefer this 26 ball blitz from the “true master.” Gosh, that strike rate! That old man could have never done this. He would have probably dragged his unbearably heavy bat around for the entire 43 overs and made it all so boring, no?

Who cares if it would have given our bowlers a bigger total to protect?

Now just for the fun of it, let’s draw out a list of all the painful innings that overrated batsman has played when apparently the “team needed him!” (We all know the team only needs Viru, don’t we?)

The Top 10 Innings You Would NOT Like to Have Seen Being Played at the Fifth ODI (India vs. New Zealand)

1. 55 off 97 balls (4 x 3)
   Sehwag: 11 off 22 (4 x 2)
   Team: 200/9 (50 overs)
   Result: SA win by nine wickets: 201/1 (31.1 overs)
   The Wisden Almanac report for this match states “South Africa calmly achieved their fourth crushing victory of the series, thanks to a vital toss: conditions were awkward for batting at the start, but improved later…”
   As we can all see, he managed to score more than one-fourth of the team total by taking up a bit less than one third of the total number of allotted deliveries. Obviously, we all know that wouldn’t have helped much down there in Auckland!

1. 77 off 127 balls (4 x 5)
   Sehwag: N/A (Sorry, but he was just 13 years old when this match was played)
   Team: 191 (48.3 overs)
   Result: WI win by six wickets: 192/4 (48.3 overs)
   
   Another seamer friendly track, and the Indian batting line-up, brittle as it used to be in those days (Jan. 11, 1992), was obviously scared to death even before it arrived at the ground. As if an opposition consisting of Marshall, Ambrose, Cummins, and Patterson wasn’t enough, this match was at the Gabba, the notoriously bouncy pitches a bit too much for the short Indian batsmen.
   Obviously, this little 18-year-old punk failed to live up to his seniors’ reputations, and struck an audacious 77 (at a crawling pace of 60.62; the second fastest half century on either side).
   The Wisden take: “West Indies preyed voraciously on the weaknesses of their opponents…to register their first win of the competition. Ignoring their experience of the Gabba and the help a fresh pitch there offers seam bowlers, India batted first and were dismissed cheaply. Outstanding West Indian bowling, bad shots from the openers and the early run-out of Manjrekar all undermined the innings. It was kept alive by Tendulkar's immaculate 77 and his seventh-wicket partnership of 76 with Kapil Dev.”
   Hardly a deserving candidate for the “Best Batsman” award.
   
   
   
2. 65 off 102 balls (4 x 7)
   Sehwag: 1 off 8 balls (4 x 0)
   Team: 162 (39.3 overs)
   Result: India win by 16run s (yes you heard it): WI 146 (41 overs)
   
   If he were batting today, maybe he would done some mischief like this. Team in dire straits, coming of a personal high (141* in the previous meeting of these two teams in the same tournament) he decides it is time to play a grinding knock and stretches an inning which should have folded at 20 overs to 39.3! What a sham! No wonder the crowds are disappearing from the game. No entertainment at all.
   Wisden said: “India retained a chance of reaching the final with a bizarre, low-scoring victory over a West Indian side that was oddly selected (a half-fit Collymore was the only specialist bowler) and even more oddly employed... Batting first on the dented pitch, India were soon battling, as Smith induced a series of edges. Tendulkar, unluckily run out when R. P. Singh's straight-drive was palmed into the stumps by the bowler Samuels, showed typical skill to reach the match's top score, adding 78 with the determined Harbhajan…”
   
   
   
3. 55 off 86 balls (4 x 9)
   Sehwag: N/A (apparently he was dropped for this series! Temme about it!)
   Team: 212 (49.4 overs)
   Result: England win by three wickets: 213/7 (48 overs)
   
   What can I say about this match? One of his luckier tournaments in recent years, this one. England, 2007. He managed to get himself out on 99 in this series (who cares if it was a wrong decision, he should have just hit a six like Viru!).
   Anyway, back to the match, where everyone from Ganguly to the Wall managed to score in single digits. The saving grace was Yuvraj, who god only knows why, decided to bat like this Tendulkar. Must have been some flu…
   
   
   
4. 79 off 119 balls (4 x 7)
   Sehwag: N/A (still dropped)
   Team: 291/4 (50 overs)
   Result: India win by eight runs: Aus 283/7 (50 overs)
   
   Why would anyone play so slowly in the same inning where Mahi is capable of getting a breathtakingly fast fifty? “To build a platform”, according to Wisden. B*lls. They don’t know anything about cricket.
   
   
   
5. 91 off 121 balls (4 x 7)
   Sehwag: N/A (Yep, still bench warming)
   Team: 258/9 (50 overs)
   Result: India win by nine runs: Aus 249 (49.4 overs)
   
   God knows what would have happened had Sehwag batted, but he certainly wouldn’t have tortured like this guy! The second final of the CB series (he managed to fluke a hundred in a chase in the previous one), and he decides it is time to dig in again. Such a selfish player. Sehwag would have tried to go for sixes and fours from the word go. So he might have lost his wicket early to the incisive bowling of the Ozs, but at least it wouldn’t be torture. Selfish.
   Again out in the 90s, it was a miracle we even won (really).
   
   
   
6. 84 off 107 balls (4 x 6)
   Sehwag: N/A (Not dropped, man. He was 13!)
   Team: 230/6 (50 overs)
   Result: NZ win by four wickets: 231/6 (47.1 overs)
   
   Another useless knock. I mean, why does this guy seem hell bent on dragging these matches? Doesn’t he know that we don’t care about the team? We only want to see Sehwag bat! Gosh. What? The World Cup? Still…
   
   
   
7. 74 off 100 balls (4 x 7; 6 x 1)
   Sehwag: 5 off 12 balls (4 x 1)
   Team: 203/9 (50 overs)
   Result: Sri Lanka won by 25 runs: 228/9 (50 overs)
   
   So this is the Asia Cup final. Everyone knows that Sri Lanka are a tough team to beat at home. So when your bowlers get the home team pinned at 228, what do you do as a batsman? Yes, you do a Sehwag, and blitz your way to hundred, and win the match for India. Not a measured knock of 74 off a 100 balls! People call him selfish. Now I know why. No care for the team.
   What? Sehwag made 5? At a lower strike rate? I have written it myself? Okay, whatever. He plays like that only. Give him some leeway, but Tendulkar! He should have played better. The rest of the team? Well… Lankan bowling? Yeah Muralitharan, he is pretty decent. Tendulkar also took 2/40 in 10 overs? Well, part-timers' luck as they say. HE PLAYED SH*T, OK?
   
   
   
8. 99 off 143 balls (4 x 12)
   Sehwag: N/A (Yes, dropped)
   Team: 242/8 (50 overs)
   Result: SA win by four wickets: 245/6 (49.3 overs)
   
   The biggest example of this man’s madness. It’s a record for him, you know? That’s the most balls he has faced in an inning where he hasn’t scored a century. It was also his first ever 99. He would score two more in the same year. What some people will do for records. Sigh.
   That Wisden dude again: “In years to come, the number of people who have seen Sachin Tendulkar make a hundred may be incalculable. How much more of a distinction, then, to have been present when, for the first time in 524 international matches, he was out for 99. But it was the equally inscrutable Kallis who took his side to victory with a well-paced 91. India, missing several players because of flu, had the consolation of seeing Piyush Chawla, in conditions that did him no favours, bowl his legspin with great guile for three wickets. Tendulkar took 17 balls to get off the mark, but was rewarded later, playing several drives of reassuring authority in a stand of 158 with the ever-elegant Dravid, before being run out going for a second by van Wyk's throw to Boucher.”
   
   
   
9. 101 off 140 balls (4 x 3; 6 x 1)
   Sehwag: N/A (Not dropped; not 13; he was actually 22, but not in the Indian team yet)
   Team: 224/8 (50 overs)
   Result: Sri Lanka won by five wickets: 225/5 (43.5 overs)
   
   There are rumours people died while watching this innings. I know some Sri Lankans on the pitch slept. Who cares if Robin Singh was the only other person to cross 20? Such slow and selfish inning. Only 18 runs in boundaries! Now you know why I saved this for the last! He was the third last wicket to fall, in the 47^th over. So unfit! This was played in Sharjah! Can you imagine a more pleasant place than the Middle East in the afternoon? Thought so.
   By the way, they gave him a man of the match award for this pile of junk. Sehwag never gets such accolades…