form biased opinions.Statistics can be agonizingly untrue.Statistics may only describe a very small part of a real character of a test cricketer.But sometimes,even statistics cannot take away from a person the approbation he might deserve.Virender Sehwag is one of such rare paradigms.
Virender Sehwag's time has come.Not just as a batsman in a team of over achieving
batting geniuses,but as a person the captain could hand a bat and go to sleep peacefully on the last day of a test match,assured that at the end of the 90 overs of the day,the result would either be a match saved if need be so,or ultimately giving him a standing ovation along with every single person present at the stadium to receive him back into the dressing room,after watching him reach a triple century inside those same 90 overs.If his stoic veneer towards reaching milestones,very few other batsmen would dare to give up,fails to touch your heart;his inability to run for a single being a run short of a double hundred batting with a number 11 batsman,2 balls into an over,is sure to make you stand up and salute him.Yes.Virender Sehwag's time has come.And how.Far from just taking over the mantle of being the backbone of the Indian batting order in Test cricket for the last many months from the ever dependable Rahul Dravid,Sehwag has come back to the top level after a prolonged slump in his form,a renewed person.A person,with a mission on his mind.A cricketer who doesn't just rashly bully the opposition bowlers into succumbing to his demands anymore.A cricketer who doesn't only entertain people with stroke-making of such extra terrestrial abilities,that it sometimes becomes difficult to digest that someone can make a bowler with more than half a thousand wickets in test cricket break down on his knees and beg for mercy. A human being who believes in his abilities to turn a match on its head,and one who could achieve it with nonchalance of inhumane proportions.
Sehwag has come to be the mainstay of the Indian batting line up in a manner in which only he can.Absolute belligerence packed with sophisticated artistry.A man who sometimes single handedly scores 3/5th of his team's score and walks away from the field completely oblivious of being only the second Indian to watch all 10 wickets fall in front of his eyes while he scores a double ton at a strike rate which would ashame Gilchrist and Jayasuriya on their best days.This is not about the 1st innings of a test match at Galle,the first day of August,2008.This is about the maturing of a cricketer from a flamboyant but effective gully cricketer into a test batsman.A title held by owners with alarming desperation.Sehwag knows when to score.When to stay.When to tighten the noose.And when to kill.And he has learnt to do it in a manner in which the opposition cannot decide whether to hail his laurels or pass out in utter disbelief.
It also seems a matter of disgrace or inopportune co-incidences that whenever Sehwag goes on to make a huge score(and that is every time he has hit a ton consecutively the last 11 times),India fail to cash in on a destroyed opposition and make the most out of it.That is probably the reason why only 2 of his 15 brilliant tons have resulted in victories.Sehwag may not be a match winner in test match cricket.But that is only because of the few terrible ironies of life.Or in this case merely a painstakingly bundled up pack of statistics.So out of some of the times that figures do snatch away magnificence,Sehwag has had to give up on his dreams of seeing his genius put to constructive purposes and see all his hard work being donated generously. Statistics-1,Sehwag-well, he has already won.
There is also the verdict on people arguing about Sehwag's penchant for throwing away wickets and playing brash,abrasive shots when things were only about to get better.If certain cases such as having scored the most number of double tons for your country in the least number of matches at sickening paces with two triple centuries also gets to be included in that argument,then Sehwag could rather well break Lara's record tomorrow and be crucified in the market square of Najafgarh for doing so.It takes more than just flamboyance to carve out the shots that Viru manages to manufacture out of his amazing "crictionary". Besides flair,such shots need amazing cricket acumen and thinking.And he has more of it than all of his mates combined when he gets going.But if his innings coincides with the other members ensuring that he doesn't run away with the match by playing poor cricket themselves,Virender Sehwag has no one to blame but life itself,which has given him more than he could have dreamt of.Such is the irony of test match cricket.
His attitude today of not going for the easily available single to reach his double ton exemplified the human being that Virender Sehwag has forced himself to become.A team man who refuses to see anything but the bigger picture.A man with grit,determination and nerves made of titanium and cased with carbon fibers.A character which cannot be explained with a pen or a keyboard for that matter.
It would be a matter of great sorrow and regret the day when Anil Kumble would have to step down as captain of the Indian test team.But it would be the entire country's loss if anyone but a man wearing the Indian tricolor on his sleeve,heart and soul is made to step into his shoes.
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