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Veeru was lucky today but was a delight to watch as usual :) When he got out looked at the scorecared and India was at 90+. Sehwag = 60+ :)
Expect him to punch Patti by end of this series. Lyon adutha match irukka maattan. iruntha sehwag adikirathula career ae mudiya chance irukku
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Intha kosu aakash chopra ellam Sehwag pathi pesura nelamai vanthiruchae :banghead:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/554424.html
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http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/conte...io/579221.html
Ian C on Sehwag and selects his 195 vs Aus in Melbourne as his XI favorite century. :clap: :clap:
Look at the excitement in his eyes when he describes the way Sehwag plays. He says he is a tremendous asset to the Indian team :wink:
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Happy (Belated) birthday wishes to Viru..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfnesZXC2Fk
Test match strike rate : 82+ :clap:
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Sehwag plays his 100th test tomorrow :notworthy:- Viru Take a Bow!!!!
http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/co...ry/592414.html
'Hit the ball, enjoy the sound'
Virender Sehwag's unorthodox style and approach to the game has redefined Test batting at the top and his impact for India and on world cricket should outlast his recent slump in overseas form
If it were possible, Virender Sehwag would have gone from 94 Tests to 100 in one match. That's what he usually wants to do once he reaches 94 in a Test innings. Even if it means risking getting stumped on 99 off the first ball he is facing from a debutant spinner. If he had hit a six of caps when 94 not out, Sehwag fans - and I am one of them - would have been able to stop facts from coming in the way of a good story.
Those facts that were driven home during his struggles in Australia. Hard as you tried, you couldn't live in denial and shrug it off by saying, "That's the way he plays." There, he even tried to buckle down for the team's good but was simply not good enough. Against the moving, bouncing new ball, his minimal footwork proved inadequate. The bowlers no longer feared bowling to him, especially if they could get it to rise rib high or move after pitching. With every confused dismissal, Sehwag reminded you he had gone from Adelaide to Adelaide without a century outside Asia in four years.
During the same period, though, Sehwag delighted with his dominance in Asia. He scored his second triple-century, in Chennai, plundered 293 of the most delightful runs in Mumbai, 201 of the most difficult ones in Galle, and even Usain-Bolted the record for the highest score in ODIs, a format he has never quite mastered. On numerous other occasions Sehwag stole results from the jaws of draws through his strike-rate in India's first innings. Often he targeted the best bowlers in the opposition so hard he practically eliminated them. To overlook this impact will be to stop facts from coming in the way of a depressing story.
The Sehwag story is anything but depressing. It is, for the most part, one of unabashed joy, of lack of inhibition, of a reminder that nine fielders can cover only so much of the field, of redefining good and bad balls, of playing scarcely believable shots with a bat whose inside edge is visible only to the bowler, of daring left-arm spinners to give up negative tactics with the promise that he will hit them for a six off the first ball they bowl from round the stumps, of pulling through mid-off to counter deep-square fields and short and wide bowling and later saying he can't play boring cricket, of failing when trying to go from 195 to 201 in one hit but still trying it in future at 295, of a reminder that cricket is just a sport after all.
You might look at Sehwag struggling in certain conditions - for just four of his 12 years, lest it be forgotten - and flourishing in certain others (you just can't ignore the number of big centuries he has scored at that strike rate) and call him a product of his times. You couldn't be more wrong.
Sehwag is not a product of his time; his times are a product of him. That's one box ticked for sure on the greatness list. He didn't just redefine opening in Tests, he did so without being an opener by training. You see openers - Watson, Gayle, Dilshan, Warner - trying to intimidate bowlers today. Sehwag started it. And he started it when asked to open the innings because the Indian middle order, his preferred station, was too packed. He gave meaning to the vague term "staying beside the line of the ball". To do it once in a while is okay, but you don't do it with his alarming regularity by fluke. He has scored six centuries at more than a run-a-ball, and taken three of them past 250. Three of the five fastest double-centuries, and five of the top 10, belong to him. He has done it not through brute strength, but through delightful manipulation of fields.
"You just react to the ball. If the ball is there to be hit, you just hit it. Don't worry that this is a Test or one-dayer or T20. You just hit it. Because it's your routine. You are not worried about 'what if I get out'. You are not worried about a four or a sixer, one or two. You just hit the ball. And enjoy the sound."
Virender Sehwag's take on batting
Sehwag batted as if meditating. "You just react to the ball," he once told me. "If the ball is there to be hit, you just hit it. Don't worry that this is a Test or one-dayer or T20. You just hit it. Because it's your routine. Every time you practise in the nets, you just go and see the ball and hit the ball. You are not worried about 'what if I get out'. You are not worried about a four or a sixer, one or two. You just hit the ball. And enjoy the sound. At the end of the day if you hit the ball or defend the ball, you love the sound that comes when the ball hits the bat."
Sehwag had me by then. As if enlightened, I added: "And that sound won't come when you are leaving the ball…" Like an arithmetic teacher who had just shown me how to add two and two, he smiled benevolently and said: "Exactly."
How simple life would have been if the man who brought us batting nirvana didn't frustrate us so. If he hadn't picked the IPL over Tests in the West Indies and England. This was Dylan gone electric. Perhaps Sehwag thought he could fit it all in. Perhaps he thought he could get the best of both worlds: take the IPL money, play Tests in England and give the West Indies a miss. Perhaps he did become a product of his time after all. He is no god, he is human like all of us. If he did pick money over Tests, perhaps he should be allowed to make all the money he wants. "Don't worry this is Test or one-day or T20," he said, remember?
When it comes to judging greatness, though, history won't be as kind. It will tell you Sehwag had one good tour each of Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand, and followed up with a bad one to each of those countries. He is a man who made a mockery of statistics but will not be allowed to hide behind them, behind that average of 51 after 99 Tests.
We will rate him by his impact, by his innovation, by his entertainment. Sehwag has brought us all of that, except only in certain conditions over the last third of his career. On the eve of his 100th Test appearance, do we let that last third outside Asia cloud our view of Sehwag? Or do we look beyond the immediate and revel in all the joy he has brought us over the rest of his career? Or do we see his hundred in his 99th Test as yet more proof of his positive attitude, that he can come back from all that and start stealing results from the jaws of draws as if nothing was amiss?
We know what Sehwag would do. Take a deep breath, sing a tune to himself, try to clear his mind of all thoughts, and just see the next ball and hit it. And enjoy the sound.
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Another Wonderful Article on Sehwagisms!!!
http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/co...ry/592425.html
'Is he bowling or begging?'
Some of the most fun things in cricket are either said by Sehwag or about him. Here's a collection
By Sehwag
"Yeh bowling kar raha hai ya bheekh maang raha hai? [Is he bowling or begging?]"
To Pakistan close-in fielders after Shoaib Akhtar's continuous sledging, asking Sehwag to hook. Even Shoaib's team-mates couldn't keep from laughing. Multan, 2003-04
"I was batting on 291 at Chepauk, against South Africa. I told Paul Harris: 'Come round the wicket and first ball I'll hit you for a six.' He accepted my challenge and the very first ball I hit him for a straight six, and there was a long-off, long-on, deep midwicket and a deep point. I was so tired and he was bowling on the pads and I was getting bored. So rather than spending 10-15 minutes to get to the triple-century I gave him good advice."
On Paul Harris. Chennai, 2008
"They are bowling into my body, and I'm playing my hook and flick shots to get boundaries. There is no other [effective] way they can bowl to me."
On New Zealand bowlers, whom he admitted to feeling sorry for. Hamilton, 2008-09
"Boycott can say what he wants. He once batted the whole day and hit just one four." On Geoff Boycott, who had referred to him as "talented but brainless"
"No, I don't know anything about them. I haven't even heard about them."
On Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy after narrowly missing their world record for the highest opening partnership in Tests. Lahore, 2005-06
"Our bank balance."
When asked for 343867th time what was the difference between him and Sachin Tendulkar
"It's soft, but that's the way we are."
On his decision to withdraw the appeal for mankading against Lahiru Thirimanne. Brisbane, 2011-12
"Ball ka ghar hai boundary, wahan usay pahunchao [The ball lives beyond that boundary, keep sending it there]" In an advert series titled "Sehwag Ke Thande Funde" [Sehwag's cool fundas]
"In the dressing room they told me I was hitting the good balls too, but if you look at it my way, I hit only the bad ones." On his 284 not out in less than a day. Brabourne Stadium, 2009-10
"No, there is no danger. We are the most dangerous batsmen in the world."
To security people in Durban who insisted he and Gautam Gambhir not walk out on their own late in the evening
"Obviously when you are on 94, you can get there with just a six."
To Paddy Upton and Eric Simons on what advice he gave VVS Laxman when he was on 94. Sehwag was running for the injured Laxman. P Sara Oval, 2010
"We have to work hard to take 20 English wickets. They are not Bangladesh."
On England; his appraisal of Bangladesh hadn't changed. Ahmedabad, 2012-13
On Sehwag
"The best way to know how Virender Sehwag's mind works is to sit next to him in the players' balcony when India are batting. Every few minutes he will clutch his head and yell, "Chauka gaya" or "Chhakka gaya". That's his way of expressing disappointment at somebody's failure to take advantage of a ball that he thought deserved to be hit for four or six. That's how he thinks, in fours and sixes."
Sourav Ganguly, in a Wisden Asia Cricket piece
"Jeremy Snape told me a great story about him while we were working together in the Indian Premier League. Sehwag and Snape were batting for Leicestershire against Middlesex when Abdul Razzaq started reverse-swinging the ball in the way that the Pakistan bowlers do. Sehwag came up to Snape and said: 'We must lose this ball. I have a plan.' Next over, he whacked that ball clean out of the ground, forcing the umpires to pick another from the box that would obviously not reverse straight away. To which Sehwag said: 'We are all right for one hour.' Smart, I say."
Shane Warne, in his list of his top 100 cricketers
"Just had a bowlers' meeting. The area of the pitch we're supposed to land it on against Sehwag is about two millimetres by two millimetres."
Stuart Clark about his preparation before the Super Test
"Well, we talked about not playing rash strokes. Of course, he hears me but I'm not sure if he ever listens." Sachin Tendulkar on the advice he gave when Sehwag was on 295 in Multan
"It's very frustrating, especially after you have batted the way I did, making it look hard for five hours, and then he comes out and smacks it everywhere."
Australia wicketkeeper Tim Paine ponders if his struggle to score 92 off 196 was worth it after watching Sehwag loot 59 off 54 on the same pitch. Mohali, 2010-11
"Sehwag can change the course of a match with the ease of Moses parting the Red Sea."
Ian Chappell says Sehwag can put the fear of god in bowlers
"I would think 'Abhi out hua, abhi out hua [He looks like he is going to get out soon]', and suddenly he would be 100 in 100 balls."
Harbhajan Singh on bowling to Sehwag in junior cricket
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John Wright on Sehwag!
The limited-overs batsman who revolutionised Test cricket
Sehwag's ability to use skills seemingly made for ODIs in the long game, and his instinct and fearlessness make him one of cricket's most compelling sights
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/592358.html
Less than a year ago, I woke up on the morning of the second Test between Australia and New Zealand in Hobart with the news that Viru had become only the second man to a double-hundred in ODIs.
My first thought was, "About time."
To me, Virender Sehwag has been the most exciting player I've watched, bar none. Yes, I know I belong to the generation that played against Viv, but having seen more of Viru than Viv, that's where I come from.
With Viru, you never know what's going to happen. Sometimes his batting doesn't work, sometimes it can be frustrating. When it works, though, he shakes up a game and turns it on its head. In Hobart that day, I thought that had Viru batted in ODI cricket the way he did in Tests, he could have got five double-hundreds. Or more.
But it is in Test cricket that Viru has shown us his genius. He has revolutionised Test batting, changed the way people look at openers, and made such an impact on the game that the rafters shake when he gets going.
Viru's 99 Tests, like his batting, seem to have gone by at top speed. A hundred Tests is a telling number, but then so are two triple-centuries, a strike rate of above 80 in Tests, 8400 Test runs, and the aforementioned double-hundred (off 149 balls).
It is always hard to judge a player in his first Test, but by the time Viru had played about a dozen, I did think that he had it in him to become something. For his first 30-odd Tests, I worked with Viru as his coach and it was a sheer delight to see him grow.
He came into the team in the guise of this middle-order batsman who had grown up on Indian wickets who could smash it everywhere. In about two years and a bit, he became a world-class Test opener with powers feared by all opposition. Over the rest of his career, he has become one of the greatest openers in the history of the game. People don't normally ever do that - go from being a middle-order batsman in India to opening in Test match cricket and producing outstanding performances all over the world.
What Viru was able to do was play tricks on cricket's very framework. If middle-order batsmen are asked to open the innings, they go into existential dilemmas, modify their game, work on technique. Many fail, a few cope. You will have heard all those stories.
Viru was different; he had no such crisis. He opened in Tests the way he had batted in the middle order - still smashing it. He didn't redefine his game because of his batting position. He redefined the position with his batting. I do not use the word genius casually.
I first met Viru in 2000, when he joined the squad to play the one-dayers against Zimbabwe, my first full series as coach of India. He looked a lovely kid - shy, with a mischievous smile, still innocent and wide-eyed, like many of the young Indians coming into the side.
Three months later, he made me sit up when he scored 58 against Australia in the Bangalore ODI. It was an innings of timing and confidence against bowlers like McGrath and Warne. We moved him into the opening slot in ODIs in a tri-series in Sri Lanka for two reasons: we had opening problems, and Viru kept getting out trying to slog the spinners in the middle overs. He nailed opening the batting beautifully - with it, he solved our problems and found he could play his game at its fullest. It should have been a different matter in Tests.
In Test matches he had a reasonable start as a No. 6, with a century on debut in South Africa and two fifties. We were struggling with Test openers and Sourav and I decided to gamble by sticking him in at the top of the order at Lord's, in only his sixth Test.
When we talked to him about the job, he didn't look like he was too worried about opening. He certainly didn't express it to me (and we had begun to speak very freely to each other by then). In his first innings as a Test opener, Viru was the team's top scorer, with 84. Then, when I saw him on a green wicket in Trent Bridge, in the second Test, I thought, "This guy is serious." He got a century and didn't look back.
Viru's coach in Delhi taught him to have a beautiful, straight backlift, so when he defends he is nicely straight and late. His attacking game wasn't too bad either. He could play so late and generate such bat speed that if you were a few inches off target on the off side, the ball was gone. Anything a bit straight was whipped through midwicket. He could also use the pace of the ball to score more effectively than most in the area between point and third man.
Early on, we widened his stance a little, and I used to encourage him to keep his head very still and not let it move sideways. When his head is perfectly still, like with any batsman, it allows him to play his late options and makes the most of his sublime balance. He is a great opener, though, because, along with everything else, he is fearless.
One of the things that I think helped him find his feet in cricket and stay grounded was that he accepted his fate. If he nicked something, he accepted it and wouldn't worry about it
Maybe he enjoys opening because he goes out to a clean slate. There are no wickets down, there's no responsibility like there would be coming in at six with four down. He goes in without any numbers and can do what he has said he does: see the ball, hit the ball. In a game filled with jargon and technique and dissection, it is like Viru knows why the great baseball catcher and manager Yogi Berra made total sense when he said: "How can you think and hit at the same time?"
Viru's instinct sweeps him away, and it is what makes him an attacking batsman. At a basic level, he must sense that instinct is swifter and more accurate than thought. Thought gets in the way. When batsmen are playing well, everyone goes by instinct, but Viru had that coupled with intrinsic fearlessness. It doesn't matter what the game situation is, who is bowling, what the wicket is doing. He sees the ball and he hits it - for four if he can.
As captain, batting partner or coach, it is best not to get in his way or try to complicate him. It would ruin Virender Sehwag. He is a natural in more ways than one.
He is one of the best balanced players I've seen. Plus, he catches like he is picking apples, and in those endless beep (fitness) tests we put the team through, he would turn on a dime. He was effortless at changing direction and caught everyone on the turn.
One of the other things that I think helped him find his feet in cricket and stay grounded was that he accepted his fate. If he nicked something, he accepted it and wouldn't worry about it. It was not that he didn't experience disappointment or didn't care, but he wasn't someone who beat himself up too much. What was over was over and he would start his next innings.
I don't know if that is what you call fatalism. Once, we flew into Melbourne in a storm and the plane was getting tossed around a little. He took one look at my face - I'm not the best of fliers - and started laughing. "What're you laughing at?" I asked him, and he said, "Relax, John, if the plane goes down, it goes down. There's nothing we can do about it." It didn't make me a better flier but it told me a little more about Viru.
The only thing that frustrated me, and that had me get stuck into him, was that for the team's sake, there were times when he needed to rein it in a little. But I knew that too much of that could ruin him. People talk about our little incident at The Oval, when I upbraided him. I made an example of Viru because I wanted the rest of the boys to understand that you have to adapt your play to the team's need to win the match.
We sorted that out later, and to his credit, he got over it and we remained mates. After we won the series in Pakistan in 2004, he insisted that I be part of the awards ceremony. I tended to avoid them because the limelight and celebration, I thought, belonged to the players. Viru had noticed this. After the victory he put his arm around my shoulder. "This time, John," he said, "you're coming with me", and dragged me down the stairs of the Rawalpindi dressing room to be with the team.
Viru is the only player I've watched who has pulled off a game suited for ODIs in Test cricket. If he had played ODIs like he played Test matches, he would have had much more success. In ODI cricket, I think he tries to up the tempo when he doesn't need to; he has already pushed the envelope as far as it can go.
Today he is 34, a senior player, a father, and not the cheeky kid I first met, though his smile still seems to contain its old mischief. I would love to believe that he has a lot of good cricket left in him, but all batsmen know that when they get to around 35, they have to work doubly hard on their fitness. It's not going to get easier but he can keep going for as long as he loves the game and trusts his instincts.
On his 100th Test, I would like to say to him: very well played Viru and thanks for the entertainment. Remember, though, that what we talked about still stands - that it's not enough to have big scores; the great ones are those who get the big scores consistently.
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Another one from Ed Smith!
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/592138.html
The pragmatic art of Virender Sehwag
He has reached an understanding with his own flaws, refused to compromise his strengths, and stayed true to himself
The conventional definition of mental strength is much too narrow. Mental strength is not only about guts and determination, sacrifice and suffering. It is also about holding your nerve, about protecting your self-belief under criticism. It is about saying: "I know what works for me. Sometimes my style of play will look terrible. But over time, I will deliver. And I won't become like everyone else just to avoid criticism." That takes real guts, too. In fact, the justified refusal to compromise your strengths is the ultimate form of mental strength.
By that measure, Virender Sehwag has exceptional mental strength. As he approaches his 100th Test match, we will hear a lot about Sehwag's remarkable hand-eye coordination, his natural ball-striking, his gift of timing and power. But those strengths needed to be nurtured, to be protected from the many voices that demanded that Sehwag curb his natural instincts and play a different way. Sehwag mastered one of the hardest tricks in sport: he reached an accommodation with his own flaws. He recognised that he could not iron out his weaknesses without losing his voice. In simple terms, he stayed true to himself. The whole game is much richer because he did just that.
I first watched Sehwag when Kent played India in 2002. Even then, there was a lot of talk about what he couldn't do - that he couldn't resist going for his shots, that he got out too easily, that he didn't adapt. I noticed something different. It wasn't the way he hit the bad balls for four. It was the way he dispatched the good ones. The bowlers ran up and bowled on a length; Sehwag then drove those length balls for four, all along the ground, with very little apparent risk. Not many players can do that. It was a pattern that would be repeated for 100 Tests.
If Sehwag's mental resilience is underestimated, so is his technique - at least certain strands of his technique. What struck me that day in 2002 was the purity of his bat swing, how squarely the bat face met the ball on impact. And how often he middled the ball.
Isn't that, surely, a central component of a "good technique"? Yes, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar developed more sophisticated techniques that could adapt to difficult pitches. And adaptability, of course, is the ultimate gauge of the ideal all-round technique. But in terms of a technique that makes the best possible contact with a ball flying in a straight line at 85mph, I do not think I've seen a better one than Sehwag's. God-given talent alone - a good eye and fast hands - will not allow you to hit that many balls for four.
Cricket has long misunderstood technique. For too long, the word has been wrongly linked to obduracy and self-denial. Technique is simply a set of skills that allows you to respond to the challenges of your sport. It is as much about attacking options as watertight defence. It is Lionel Messi's exceptional technique, his control of the ball, that allows him to play with such flair for Barcelona. It is Roger Federer's basic technique that allows him to play such a dazzling array of shots from any part of the tennis court.
So it is with Sehwag. It is his technical mastery of attacking shots that puts extraordinary pressure on the bowler. I remember hearing from Stuart Clark when Australia were about to play the Rest of the World XI in 2005. "Just had a bowlers' meeting," Clark explained, "the area of the pitch we're supposed to land it on against Sehwag is about two millimetres by two millimetres!" A fraction full: expect to be driven for four. A fraction short: expect to be punched off the back foot for four.
Sehwag takes boundary hitting very seriously. It is a skill borne of deep attention to detail: you don't become so good at something without loving it. Many great batsmen sit in the dressing room talking about how the players in the middle are missing out on singles. Sehwag, apparently, pipes up when someone misses an attacking opportunity. "He missed a four!" he will say regretfully.
In terms of a technique that makes the best possible contact with a ball flying in a straight line at 85mph, I do not think I've seen a better one than Sehwag's. God-given talent alone will not allow you to hit that many balls for four
He also knows which bowlers to target. Aakash Chopra recalls how ruthlessly Sehwag seized on the most vulnerable bowler. He knew exactly which bowlers he could destroy. That takes intelligence as well as self-awareness. And it is a huge benefit to the team. A batsman who can "knock out" one of the opposition's bowlers changes the whole balance of the match. If one bowler effectively cannot bowl when Sehwag is at the wicket, then the others tire much more quickly.
Like all great players, Sehwag developed a game that suited him. Dravid once told me that Brian Lara and Tendulkar were so talented that they could regularly score Test hundreds in three or four hours. But Dravid felt he had to be prepared to bat for more like five or six hours for his hundreds. Quite simply, in order to score as heavily as Lara and Tendulkar, Dravid thought he had to bat for more balls. Every batsman has to face up to a version of that calculation: what is my natural tempo, what is the appropriate amount of risk for my game?
But there are two sides to that equation. First, there is time. Secondly, there is run rate. Dravid calculated that he possessed the defensive technique and psychological skills to spend more time in the middle than most great players. So he would compromise on run rate and extend his occupation of the crease.
Sehwag asked the same question but reached the opposite conclusion. Instead of facing more balls, how about scoring more runs off the balls that he did face? Sehwag's judgement of his own game, just like Dravid's, has been fully vindicated by his record. Here is the crucial point. Sehwag's approach is not "reckless" or "naïve". It is deeply pragmatic.
Steve Waugh said that Sehwag is the ultimate "KISS" player: Keep It Simple, Stupid. But that is easier said than done. After a series of nicks to the slips, it would have been tempting for Sehwag completely to remodel his technique. But he had the courage to stick to his method and the conviction that when he got back on a pitch that suited him, he would make it pay. After a sparkling hundred in his 99th Test, Sehwag now reaches another century. He is looking to be proved right yet again.
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http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/co...ry/592283.html
A match-winner in the subcontinent
Although Virender Sehwag's overall batting stats are extremely impressive, the downside is that a vast majority of his runs came on batting-friendly tracks in the subcontinent
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:clap: :clap: to Sehwag...