Virender Sehwag: Ember to Inferno?

Virender Sehwag often brings a quote to mind, “He will never die guessing!”

Every batsman at the international level goes through major stages in his career, if he’s been there long enough, just as in life. Not all follow the same path, and almost each is unique at the different parts of their journey.

To me, Tendulkar’s career has been a perfect example of the highs and lows a batsman goes through. What Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex was to Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy, Tendulkar’s career has been to my theory of a batsman’s career timeline!

He began with not much more than a whimper, scoring 15 in his first inning in Test matches, and two consecutive ducks in One Day Internationals.

With patience from the team management and selectors, and persistence and hard work from self, he gradually began an ascendancy in world cricket that seemed to last a lifetime! He reached his prime a decade into his career, and it lasted, roughly, from around ’96-’97 to about ’03-’04.

Then came a heavy downward spiral which threatened to put a big stain on his image as the greatest ever cricketer.

Now at the doorstep of retirement, the maestro is pushing the limits of cricketing excellence through a brilliant technique, crafted and perfected through five years of grueling scrutiny, a will power strong enough to blow away the strongest storms and a brain that refuses to waver even if a ticking time bomb were placed on its surface!

Of course not everybody reaches the heights set by the very best. You need the average to be able to value the special.

While Tendulkar is the premiere example of my hypothesis, many batsmen have seen times similar to what Tendulkar has experienced.

Dravid, a contemporary of the Master, is going through the phase that Tendulkar was going through during 2003 in the Tests. Dravid has seen his personal form go from phenomenal to average to downright abysmal.

Not being Tendulkar means not having a cent percent job security in Indian cricket. Dravid paid the price with his place among the Men in Blue. His Test form, though, still remains patchy.

Not too long ago, Dravid too was going through his prime. India’s best batsman for the time period that Tendulkar was in his exile, he broke, and set, many batting records, including Gavaskar’s feat of a scoring a century in each inning of a Test match twice!

This was preceded by a rather somber start to international cricket, with constant barrages targeted towards his slow and slightly nervy approach to one day batting, punctuated by brave centuries in Test match cricket, like his 148 against South Africa in ’97.

But, for every theory, there’s and exception. And often these exceptions turn out to be so great, they overshadow, and often smash these theories into oblivion.

William Shakespeare did it to Aristotle’s theory; Brian Lara does it to mine (You would have to excuse me for omitting Bradman. He never suffered from any batting crests and troughs. Yet, Lara is, I suppose, more human, and therefore a more preferred variable to my experiment!). The man went through one of the finest careers in Test history in almost monosyllabic Genius. From early 1990 to mid 2007, almost nothing changed. Form came, form went; the Calypso in Lara never faded!

Another bloke is going down this path, but this particular willow wielder, it seems, it etching out a third path, not completely lacking in the stages mentioned in the theory, but also molding Lara’s, almost arrogant, tenacity to retain the same treatment towards all round objects with a leather seem, irrespective time, place and situation!

He began his career with quite a bang. Two seasons into his career, he had already smashed Indian records for fastest Indian ODI hundreds, and made a stunning century on Test debut at Bloemfontein against a fiery South African attack, not lacking in assistance from the pitch and weather!
His partnership with Tendulkar in that inning will remain symbolic for more than one reason.

For one, he was always touted as the “Tendulkar-clone” or the “next Tendulkar”.

Luckily, and amazingly, he has escaped all the stereotypes (and in fact set some for new comers like Dhoni!). As if innings such as his 195 and 309 weren’t enough, Sehwag is fast beginning to reach another plane.

At 29, Tendulkar, playing at the ’03 World Cup, reached the pinnacle of batting perfection. The balance he attained between attack and defense enabled him to set the record for most runs in a single World Cup, an astronomical 673, in just 11 innings. His inning of 50-odd during a chase in the same tournament is well documented as one of his best onslaughts against England, made famous by a spectacular hook off Caddick! This inning was soon followed by a dogged inning of about 80 against Zimbabwe, putting up a defendable total on a sluggish pitch.

Sehwag, at a similar age, is simply taking attacking, unorthodox batting to another level.

Some would say that this was expected. After all, Tendulkar’s obsession with perfection is as well known as Sehwag’s laid back, couldn’t-care-less approach towards batting.

Tendulkar and Dravid are often seen practicing defensive shots or drives when in the nets. I have seen Sehwag slog sweep Harbhajan Singh during a net session at Melbourne. (The ball cleared the nets, and landed quite a distance away!)

The biggest difference between the Bombay Bomber and the Nawab of Najafgarh is in the way they think at the crease.

For Tendulkar, planning is of utmost importance. He is always two steps ahead of the bowler, planning a counter punch to everything the bowler may throw at him in the next delivery.

Sehwag may have just been dropped after playing a pull off a shot delivery. But if the very next ball is pitched short again, he will still go after it. Of course this recklessness brings about his downfall against well planned and equipped teams such as Australia. But when not executed properly, Sehwag easily becomes a batsman worth ten times the destruction a Lara or a Tendulkar could ever create.

If his batting during the Kitply Cup had me worried if he’d lost his fire, this Asia Cup has me expecting things of him I wouldn’t even have dreamed off from even Tendulkar!

At the onset of middle-age, the Sultan of Multan is getting his shot selection in place. Of course, you may say, that would mean a less attacking Sehwag! The thing is, you are forgetting that Sehwag hardly regards the forward and backward defense as shots. I can’t say for sure, but he might just be thinking that a defense results when batsmen forget to move their blades!

Simply put, he is finding better, more efficient ways of reaching the fence.

His inning of 118 against the old enemy, Pakistan, was a lesson in itself.

The beginning was slow, as he struggled to get enough of the strike. But once Gambhir departed, and Raina set in well with a few singles, Sehwag began to flow like poetry in motion.

He recently posted the fastest triple hundred in Test cricket ever. Up against a decent South African attack, on a flat deck at Chennai, he became the first man to do quite a few things. One of them, for me especially, was to brutalize a team so badly, they would never forget, or forgive, him in a hurry!

That triple marked the beginning of an improved Viru.

His greatest improvement has been his abstinence from employing the cut shot. He kept getting himself out with that shot every time the ball was pitched even slightly shot. With the drive on the up and his pull shot, he is fast finding other means of transport for the ball pitched on the good length spot, on and around off stump, to the fence!

Ganguly said of him comeback last season, in ODIs, that it was all in the mind, and little to do with technique.

While others try and absorb or “soak in” the pressure, Sehwag merely deflects any such negative energy, as if they were a creation of the mind, almost like ghosts! This enables him to be the big match player that he is. In the ODI format, Sehwag has been a flop show due to God-knows-what reason. An average of less than 32 in the limited overs version pales in front of his staggering Test average of 51.75. All that, it seems, is about to change, as

Sehwag has suddenly found a new leash of consistency in ODI cricket, the kind I have never seen him display before!

What ever Kirsten and the team management at India and the Daredevils have done, they have given India a polished gem, one that can unlock vast treasures, beginning with the Asia Cup.

Whether this is just a one-off case of good form, with sub-continental wickets assisting him, or will he carry this form onto the other realms of cricket, only time will tell.

Until then, lets enjoy the transformation of Sehwag. From Ember to Inferno!

In birth just an ember a spark of creation

Towards genesis

With vision of dominion and godliness

With vision godliness

It will take all you have held

In evolutions design it will burn up

All the obstacles

Changing opposition to carnal ash

With vision godliness

It will take all you have held

Sacred, sacred, sacred

With vision godliness...

"From Ember to Inferno"

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