The Pilgrimage
A little more than two years ago, I was chilling in Delhi, having just finished my internship six days before my departure from the city. A friend, who was still doing his internship told me he'd meet me at the South-Ex market at six-thirty. By eleven-fifteen, I was feeling too restless, and I thought that I might as well check out the market (read cute Delhi chicks), get something to eat (read cheap shit at McD's), and might be buy something (read some T-shirt with a WWF guy on it - it was my life ambition then to own a WWF T-shirt - not because I liked wrestling, but because I never owned one while every respectable member of my generation owned one at some point!).
When I reached South-Ex, and had walked around for nearly an hour, this bus caught my attention. The bus was going to Najafgarh. Najafgarh! That's where the Bomber was from! Without thinking, I got in and travelled all the way to the obscure suburb. When I got off, I shocked the conductor by asking him where The Bomber's house was. He didn't know. A helpful auto driver offered to take me there and back for forty bucks. I knew he could be cheating me, but tihs was a pilgrimage that had to be made, and it was worth forty bucks. When I saw the house, I thought to myelf, "Thank you for all the entertainment!"
I returned to South-Ex on time for my meeting.
Its a story I hid from people when Sehwag lost his form and his place in the side. Society puts a high premium on conformism and agreeing with the national cricket selection policy, after all. But the Bomber wasn't to lie low for too long. He'd been developing newer bombs. Bombs, like many of his earlier ones, that were too big for the limited overs scene. Like Lara before him, Sehwag's finds full freedom only in the longest version of the game. While Lara was a one-day great, in the league of Ganguly and Richards, a notch below Sachin, we will always remember him more for what he did against England, Sri Lanka and Australia in the Test matches, because it was here that he was unparalleled in his generation.
I know that some day, Sehwag will get there. When people talk of the greatest batsmen of the early part of this century, Sehwag's name will be spoken of, along with Ponting, Kallis and Dravid. People will argue that while his numbers done show it, he was better than them. People will talk nostalgically of the day when the bowlers didn't know where to bowl at him. People will talk of captains falsely claiming to have "figured-him-out". People will ponder over why he was never able to replicate his success in the shorter versions.
On that day, I will tell my grandchildren of how I watched him play on a non-3D-TV, of how he hit that six from 193 to 199 off Ntini, of his upper cut, his feet that never moved, and of how I made that pilgrimage to Najafgarh, and they will listen to my wide-eyed, and wonder if they'd ever do something like that for a batsman of their generation!
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10 replies:
While he is more entertaining to watch than most Indian batsman (and would probably have my vote as fav batsman too), I'd disagree about his stats.
If anything, his stats show him to be a better player than he actually is, simply because when he makes a score, he really makes a score, which inflates his figures.
But the rest of the time... extremely limp. The selectors have decided that a 150-200 (to anywhere above) once in a while is good enough rather than a consistent 70-120ish.
Hopefully he does have better consistency now, for the team's sake.
Just as for Sehwag, whites work for your blog!
@bobo
I've been doing some serious analysis of his numbers, and rather surprisingly, your statement, "But the rest of the time... extremely limp," isn't fully true. I'll put up the analysis shortly. Doing a comparison with the other openers of his era - Hayden, Taylor, Slater, Langer, Anwar, Jayasuriya, Trescothick, and others.
The comment you make is sort of like, "Sehwag gets out playing the wrong shot most of the time." Well, most batsmen get out playing the wrong shot. It is about one in twenty innings that you're undone by an unplayable ball. The difference is, that while Kallis gets out to a wrong defensive shot, Sehwag gets out to a wrong attacking shot. This makes him look worse!
@dum spiro, spero
I was thinking of orange. What opinion?
perhaps.
but the problem is that apart from falling while playing an attacking shot (which is fine, given his style), he perishes due to an abysmal defensive technique.
But do we attach too much importance to technique sometimes? He's scoring the runs, he's scoring them as consistently as most openers in the world, and definitely more consistently than any opener India's had since Gavaskar - how does it matter how her gets out?
nice post :)
@bobo
i think "anysmal defensive technique" is a little too harsh. Sehwag's defence is as good as any modern opener, if not better: that is confirmed by the fact that he plays as many balls per innings as anybody else. lets face it, we havent found an opener who'd last (not score, just last) longer than him for years. akash chopra came close. but, that is all.
And even on a flat deck, unless you have some defensive technique, it is impossible to last 300-odd balls if you cant defend ...
relative. he's good. could be better with a little more work and less chom-ness. *wink*
again, without looking at the stats (so you can ignore this completely), i'd say sehwag scores faster than most modern openers, but i doubt he lasts as long as the best of them.
Okay - I was looking at the consistency angle... Sehwag has 38.09% of scores above 40 as an opener. Hayden is on 38.91% and Anwar on 41%. So, not too bad.
Once you extrapolate 50s and 100s to the number of innings, it is around the same, with Hayden on top, followed by Sehwag and then Anwar.
All this is still not taking into account the fact that he scores faster than either of them, and more consistently bigger scores than either of them.
Its like this - if one looked at Viv Richards' stats, he doesn't seem like a monster of a batsman. But take into account the fact that he terrorised bowling attacks for a good part of two decades, and you know that he's better than Ken Barrington.
actually, that's the problem isn't it?
one of aura. whether viv was as 'inconsistent' of sehwag or not, he's remembered as a dismemberer of attacks. sehwag, even right now (without looking into the crystal ball of the future), isn't considered as a terroriser of attacks.
accorded respect by those who matter (i.e. bowlers, if not necessarily commentators and ppl like me), but they still think they have a chance with him on anything other than a featherbed.
"remembered as a dismemberer" - nice play on words!
I think he is.
And until he gets going, as is the case with most attacking batsmen, the bowlers think they have a chance. That doesn't take anything away from the batsman!
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