I still believe it’s a bad, unequal wicket that doesn’t make for a great contest. I still believe this match is likely to be drawn. Yet, nothing, just nothing can take away from Sehwag’s innings. Every time he scores a century – and 10 scores of over 150 bear this out – he goes on to make a big one. He doesn’t throw it away, there’s a hungry, gritty, run-chewing monster inside him.
It’s tempting to compare Sehwag to K. Srikkanth, another hard-hitting batsman with a quick eye and delightful wrists who, if memory serves me right, got only two hundreds in Test cricket. I remember both those innings – one in Chennai itself, against Imran in 1986-87, and one a season earlier in Australia (which I heard on the radio, but didn’t see). So often, he’d blaze his way to 30 or 40 and then get bored, twirl his nostrils, make some silly error and go home – another of a long list of Indian stylists who scored fewer runs than they should have.
Sehwag started off looking podgy – he is much fitter in real life than the photographs do him credit – but today his stamina spoke for him. It’s remarkable that in team with four batsmen who’re all rated above him, he’s the one who refuses to get out. It would be sacrilege perhaps to mention him in the same breath as Bradman and Lara – the others to have hit two triple hundreds in Tests – but look how he’s polished his limited skills set and where it’s taken him to ... He’s a bit like Ravi Shastri in that sense, only more free-scoring.
These past two years have cost Sehwag a lot – his form, his place in the team, his shot at captaincy. He’s lost that slot to Dhoni and if he decides he doesn’t want it, maybe it’ll just free him up for a long innings as India’s most prolific opener since that day in Mumbai in 1987 when Sunil Gavaskar left the crease for the last time. There couldn’t be two more different batsmen; but only one of them ever reached 300.
Eventhough Srikanth Scored only few hundreds ( more than 2 as you mentoned) his was the start of brave and unadulterated hard hitting. I still remember the Sportstar coverup for that madras test- showing him both feets of the gorund, atleast 1 feet higher, cutting Imran khan for a four. The title"Shot of a Genius".
And when west Indies touered India, in Bombay test, till the time he was there , runs were flowing against the likes of Patrick Patterson- remmber Who?- And then the demolishing of Mcdermot and co.
His time was basically just at the begining India earned the reputation of hard hitting and big shots. Who can forget his one day knocks, the science of hitting one bounce in to the boundary, and the lofted stright hit sixes. In a Sharjaj ODI against windies, he would execute a shortarm pull against the likes of Marshall for a six.
Great Guts and bravo- entertainment first. I would summarily put that he was the pioneer of Indian style of hard hitting.
Posted by: Rohan Goonewardene on 03/30/2008
The nuance that Sehwag should be rated higher than Gavaskar because he has a higher individual scores than him, well to me atleast, doesnt mean so at all.
If we were talking of Long jump yes sehwag should be consider the better performer, but in Test cricket performers and teams are judged over time, and Sunil Gavaskar's place is secured in the highest echelons of batting greats let alone opening batsmen.
In terms of clean hitting, Sehwag to me ranks with the very greatest, I rank him along side the Viv Richards and the Adam Gilchrist category. In that sense, he has the potential to be considered the most devastating opening batsman in the history of Test Cricket. Having said that I still rank Hayden the best opening batsman since Gooch, so thats going back 15 years.
My conclusions are based on the fact that I havent seen Sehwag against really great fast bowlers on green or bouncy pitches. Its not Sehwag's fault but still the others mentioned above have been. Sehwag has time.
Posted by: Nawed on 03/30/2008
Sehwag is the best. He is better than Gavasker, bcoz of his off spin. Gavaskar was very defensive and wasted a lot of peoples lives just by blocking deliveries.
Posted by: Parvez on 04/01/2008
sorry AM, but gavaskar's last inning was in Bangalore (where both Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed took 9 wkts each in the test!)
[Ashok responds ... Gavaskar's last Test innings was in Bangalore in early 1987. His final innings for India was in the Reliance Cup semi-final in Bombay/Mumbai later in the year]
Posted by: Grud on 04/08/2008
How in the world can one compare a batsman like Sunil Gavaskar to someone like Sehwag? True both are amazing openers, but totally contrasting styles. I do not mean this reply to your blog but to other commenters who are comparing them.
Compare Gavaskar to Dravid and tell me whos better. I really want to know.
Ashok Malik has been a journalist since 1991 and is currently senior editor at the Pioneer. His one unfulfilled journalistic ambition is to be a gossip writer in a film magazine. The cricket buff inside him is a split personality. The newsperson is convinced of IPL's potential and that, inevitably, it will gobble up the rest of cricket; the romantic dreams of a glorious day at the Elysian Oval, with Trumper scoring a century before lunch – and batting on forever.
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