Simple thinking – “See the ball,
hit the ball”, Simple technique – “No text book complication, just clean and
class hitting”. Simple talk – “England is not Bangladesh, we have to play hard
to get 20 wickets”. An amalgamation of all and it is Virender Sehwag for you. The Career that spanned breath-taking
chutzpah and fearless batting has finally comes to an end.
He is the one who followed the
primitive rules of cricket game in the finest way possible. It works on the simple
funda that while the batsman tries to hit the ball and score runs, the bowler
needs to get him out. Many developments have emerged as the game progressed
over years and to be honest, the game of cricket has lost its original sheen. The
cricket connoisseurs prefer the bookish cricket and even the new breed of cricketer’s
skill-set is a result of nurturing through thousands of hours of practice. However,
a typical cricket fanatic loves to watch the cricketers play in their true
style and this is one of the reasons why the people love West Indies players
most. They play in their own fashion and nobody can replicate that style and
there is a lot of demand out there for this brand of cricket. Sehwag stays in
the top list who have mastered this art of playing cricket in its true form.
While fans wanted him to be the
next Sachin, he became one of his
own kind. He craved a niche for himself with mind numbing brilliance. It is not
the runs he scored, it was the brash style and attitude that made him stand out
from the rest. The swagger and confidence has always put him on top of the
game. Unlike many, Sehwag has written
his own script throughout his career and executed it meticulously. While many
cricketers tries to make their lives memorable, he tried to make it memorable
for the cricket fraternity. He revolutionized the game of cricket and
introduced a different brand of batting to the cricket fan. He changed the
fortunes of openers in Test arena which was mostly filled with stay and survive
mode till then. For a batsman with such ferocity, it’s difficult to imagine a
mild mannered personality and this difficult combination taken its life through
him.
Apart from his batting heroics,
the one thing the stands out is his calmness and humility. He takes the highs
and the lows in equal fashion. You can spot him looking disinterested after
smacking the ball hard over the ropes and on another day he wears a smile after
playing the worst shot. He served as a great ambassador for cricket by sporting
humility and gamesmanship both off and on the field. He has always been in good
books with media, sponsors etc.
Once retired, we quantify the cricketer’s
journey in numbers which does the justice to some extent. The same cannot be
applied in this case as the journey is more of an experience than anything
else. His career is much more than any explanation and it was something special
only for who had witnessed it in real time. The upper cuts and flashing square
cuts will dearly miss him.
Post retirement, he is not an
individual who questions himself about his contributions, the doubles &
triples, or the match winning knocks. All he concerned about is “If he has
entertained or not?”
