The method and madness of Virender Sehwag
As was chronicled last year, following his triple century, the best thing about Sehwag is the fresh approach he has brought to India's cricket, especially in tests. Averages dont really seem to matter to him, as best exemplified by his wild shot when the drawn first test at Mohali was nearing its end. His test average of nearly 56 is not propped up by not outs. Yes, he does absolutely jot in his second innings. But the damage he inflicts in his first is usually enough.
But when he gets out, the rest of the batsmen nowadays bat like headless chickens and totally lose the plot. He is very close to being India's top batsman, on current form at least. Rahul Bhattacharya ponders about the Sehwag effect.
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Sehwag is really good, and his approach, specially in tests is helping Indian test team a lot. And I agree with Rahul in that article that Sachin is conscious to play cautiously (he has accepted this) if Sehwag is on fire at other end, specially in ODIs. He did this even when he opened with Ganguly, specially in 1-2 yr period just before Sehwag came in as opener. And this is great for Indian cricket.
Rest of that article, or your comment about others throwing away his advantage, I don't agree with. Because Sehwag has scored some of his big knocks against Aus, and it is highly likely that against them not many in the same innings would click. So that seems like throwing away advantage.
And ofcourse this series has been not a very high point for Indian batsmen (compared to their own standards only !). But still, Sehwag's initiative was well built upon in first test, and many other tests. Many were not won, but then many were won without his contribution also. That would indicate that this Indian TEST team (on the whole including Sehwag) is doing lots of things right.
I also dont agree about 'headless chicken' theory of yours. As Rahul himself pointed out, whenever he got out cheaply, rest of the Indian batsmen have taken up the responsibility very well (recent examples Aus-Mumbai, Pak-Kolkata, ODI-today, all-the-test-second-innings). But, having said this, I totally agree that whenever he does well in the first innings, its quite good, and more than makes up for second innings low scores. Still, he would be a more complete test batsman after a few second innings thrillers against quality opposition.
By 
worma (5 Apr 2005, 8:08:00 pm)
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