"Six - forget, Miss – forget, Just Play" - Sehwagology

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?”