In Bon Jovi's smash hit It’s My Life, the rock band pays tribute to Frank Sinatra by crooning, “Like Frankie said, I did it my way." The song become a cultural anthem – that line especially became a clarion call to thousands across the world to live life according to their own terms.
What Bon Jovi did for music, Virender Sehwag did the same for cricket. Perhaps, it is coincidental but the last line of Sehwag’s retirement statement on Tuesday runs on similar lines. “I also want to thank everyone for all the cricketing advice given to me over the years and I apologise for not accepting most of it!” he wrote. “I had a reason for not following it; I did it my way!”
The Sehwag way
The Sehwag way was devastatingly simple: see ball, hit ball. Sehwag took the textbook of cricket batting and threw it down a dustbin. Batting was simplified to its basic elements – a battle between bat and ball and nothing more than that.
At first, few doubted if it would work. Critics pointed to his lack of footwork. But as the years went on and Sehwag carried on re-writing batting records with an unrestrained simplicity, the admiration grew. At his best, Sehwag was nothing short of exhilarating – his lightning-fast hands exploding to send the ball racing to the boundary. His audacity knew no limits – in the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne in 2003, Sehwag, batting on 195, barely flicked an eyelid before trying reach the double century landmark with a six. He holed out at deep mid-wicket, thus missing a double century, but there was not even a tinge of regret – three months later in Multan, Sehwag went from 295 to 301 in the only way he knew, carting Saqlain Mushtaq for a towering six.
It reflected in the way he saw his cricket. In an age where cricket was becoming increasingly complex and each international team employed specialists to minutely analyse the game, Sehwag was a glorious throwback to the days of yore when cricket had a simpler ring to it. Political correctness was an alien concept to the “Nawab of Najafgarh”, he told the game like he saw it. In Lahore in 2006, Sehwag and Rahul Dravid were involved in a record opening stand and were separated only three short of breaking the world record 413-run partnership set by Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy in 1956. When questioned about whether the pressure of breaking that record had contributed to his dismissal, Sehwag was blissfully nonchalant about the entire matter, admitting that he had never even heard Mankad and Roy’s names.
But more than his own utterances, Sehwag’s approach to cricket and achievements created a set of mythos surrounding his game. Players who played with him often narrated anecdotes about Sehwag’s antics which revealed his attitudes to cricket. Harbhajan Singh, Sehwag’s contemporary, probably spoke on behalf of Indian fans when he described what he used to think when bowling to him in junior cricket: “I would think 'Abhi out hua, abhi out hua [He looks like he is going to get out soon]', and suddenly he would be 100 in 100 balls.”
But the funniest story about Sehwag probably came from Shane Warne, in his list of top 100 cricketers:
Spreading joy
Smart, audacious, cock-sure – Sehwag was this and many other things. But his greatest quality was the joy he spread in cricket. In his element, Sehwag would make cricket the game a glorious experience, perhaps not for the bowler, but for everyone who had the pleasure to watch him. For sheer entertainment value, there was no one who came even close to him.
Virender Sehwag came from a family of grain merchants and proceeded to tear up all the rulebooks about batting. And in his words, he did all, in his own, inimitable way. But Viru did it all by making cricket joyous again. And despite his monumental statistics, it is for that reason that cricket lovers will forever be grateful to the dasher from Najafgarh.
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What Bon Jovi did for music, Virender Sehwag did the same for cricket. Perhaps, it is coincidental but the last line of Sehwag’s retirement statement on Tuesday runs on similar lines. “I also want to thank everyone for all the cricketing advice given to me over the years and I apologise for not accepting most of it!” he wrote. “I had a reason for not following it; I did it my way!”
The Sehwag way
The Sehwag way was devastatingly simple: see ball, hit ball. Sehwag took the textbook of cricket batting and threw it down a dustbin. Batting was simplified to its basic elements – a battle between bat and ball and nothing more than that.
At first, few doubted if it would work. Critics pointed to his lack of footwork. But as the years went on and Sehwag carried on re-writing batting records with an unrestrained simplicity, the admiration grew. At his best, Sehwag was nothing short of exhilarating – his lightning-fast hands exploding to send the ball racing to the boundary. His audacity knew no limits – in the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne in 2003, Sehwag, batting on 195, barely flicked an eyelid before trying reach the double century landmark with a six. He holed out at deep mid-wicket, thus missing a double century, but there was not even a tinge of regret – three months later in Multan, Sehwag went from 295 to 301 in the only way he knew, carting Saqlain Mushtaq for a towering six.
It reflected in the way he saw his cricket. In an age where cricket was becoming increasingly complex and each international team employed specialists to minutely analyse the game, Sehwag was a glorious throwback to the days of yore when cricket had a simpler ring to it. Political correctness was an alien concept to the “Nawab of Najafgarh”, he told the game like he saw it. In Lahore in 2006, Sehwag and Rahul Dravid were involved in a record opening stand and were separated only three short of breaking the world record 413-run partnership set by Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy in 1956. When questioned about whether the pressure of breaking that record had contributed to his dismissal, Sehwag was blissfully nonchalant about the entire matter, admitting that he had never even heard Mankad and Roy’s names.
But more than his own utterances, Sehwag’s approach to cricket and achievements created a set of mythos surrounding his game. Players who played with him often narrated anecdotes about Sehwag’s antics which revealed his attitudes to cricket. Harbhajan Singh, Sehwag’s contemporary, probably spoke on behalf of Indian fans when he described what he used to think when bowling to him in junior cricket: “I would think 'Abhi out hua, abhi out hua [He looks like he is going to get out soon]', and suddenly he would be 100 in 100 balls.”
But the funniest story about Sehwag probably came from Shane Warne, in his list of top 100 cricketers:
Jeremy Snape told me a great story about him while we were working together in the Indian Premier League. Sehwag and Snape were batting for Leicestershire against Middlesex when Abdul Razzaq started reverse-swinging the ball in the way that the Pakistan bowlers do. Sehwag came up to Snape and said: 'We must lose this ball. I have a plan.' Next over, he whacked that ball clean out of the ground, forcing the umpires to pick another from the box that would obviously not reverse straight away. To which Sehwag said: 'We are all right for one hour.' Smart, I say.
Spreading joy
Smart, audacious, cock-sure – Sehwag was this and many other things. But his greatest quality was the joy he spread in cricket. In his element, Sehwag would make cricket the game a glorious experience, perhaps not for the bowler, but for everyone who had the pleasure to watch him. For sheer entertainment value, there was no one who came even close to him.
Virender Sehwag came from a family of grain merchants and proceeded to tear up all the rulebooks about batting. And in his words, he did all, in his own, inimitable way. But Viru did it all by making cricket joyous again. And despite his monumental statistics, it is for that reason that cricket lovers will forever be grateful to the dasher from Najafgarh.