This is precisely what I love about Sehwag! He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what the pitch is like, what the bowling attack is like or how the other batsman played! He just goes there and smacks everything that’s dished out to him!
It really does make you wonder why Colly and Strauss took nearly 250 odd balls to make their 108s, while Sehwag creamed 83 off just 68 balls!
And the best part is what he says during the media conference after stumps: “It was my normal batting and I was not going after any particular player,” he said. “They were giving me width for the cut and I just played my shots.”!
And Dravid drags himself to 2 off 15 balls! Really, sometimes you have to send in someone like Laxman when India get such a good start, so that the momentum can be continued, rather than being spoiled by someone like Dravid.
Really, what put everything in perspective about Sehwag was a comment by Ganguly in the Wisden Cricketer. When asked about Sehwag, he said that the best way to understand him is to sit beside him when the other’s are out in the middle, batting.
Sourav said that, once, when Dravid was batting, he was sitting with Sehwag at the dressing-room balcony, and, when Dravid kept blocking balls, apparently he was shouting “Ah, he could’ve played a cut shot”, “He could’ve sent that over the slips”.
Amazing, isn’t it, how he sees a possible boundary opportunity with every ball!
Just for the record, he made his half-century off 32 balls, which is the second fastest by an Indian in a test match, only behind Kapil Dev’s 30-ball one!
Off Cutter 