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Is Sehwag selfless? Really?
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Articles - Classics Wednesday, 12 May 2010 03:34
Contributed by Aswin Sambamurthy    (4826 views)


A lot has been said about Sehwag being 'selfless' and he has already earned the praise of cricket fans from all nations for that. The selflessness here, I believe, refers to the way he goes after even the good balls without giving much thought to his personal records in an effort to score runs 'for the team'.

But is it really that? Is that selflessness? I don't think so.

Selflessness in cricket should ideally mean not playing for yourself, while playing for the team's cause. Sehwag doesn't play for his personal records, I agree, but he doesn't exactly play for the team either. I can see that you are shocked at such an accusation, but let me put my possibly blasphemous point of view first.

Let's consider a scenario here. If only 200 runs are required in a bowler-friendly pitch in fifty overs, what helps the team more? Planning your way, keeping your wickets intact, maintaining at the required run rate (or a little more) and going after only the bad deliveries and weak bowlers? Or going mad and attacking the opposition's best bowlers at the risk of losing your wicket and pushing the others in the team into saving wickets because their in-form opening batsman got out without doing his job?
 
Viru goes after nearly every ball in the ODI and T20 formats of the game regardless of match situations and has surprisingly stayed that way despite mammoth levels of pressure on his shoulders. If you ask me, sticking to the wham-thump-bang style without caring about the strength of the rest of the team or the pitch or the target is pure selfishness and should definitely not be termed as playing for the team. That is because he plays purely to have fun and to enjoy his game, not to help the team win. If I remember right, John Wright, a former Indian Coach, got so frustrated with this fun-game-who-cares-about-who-wins style during the Pakistan series a few years ago that he held Sehwag by his collar when he threw his wicket away.

If Rahul Dravid had gone about his test career that way, we'd have seen greater technique (if possible), definitely better strike rates and who knows, even the vocal support of every cricket fan in the world for his greatness (which he still deserves but hasn't received); but we would have also lost so many more matches on the way and Team India would have collapsed on many occasions under South African, West Indian, Australian and even Indian conditions without those bowl-however-you-want-but-the-Wall-can-and-will-save-the-match innings. Apart from that, for all I know, Laxman might not have got his 281 and Sehwag himself might not have got his 309 without perhaps the strongest second fiddle player in the world, who hung in there, doing what was required from him, without trying too much for himself.

Going back to the Nawab of Najafgarh, is Viru nothing without that style of play? As seen in some of his test innings, he can play the safe way just as well (if not better), and his records support that argument. He can and needs to bring that quality to the forefront in at least ALL (and not a few) second and fourth innings of test matches and important ODIs (and even some T20 matches, I might add) if he is to win fans like me who would want to see India win more than anything else. His strike rate in such controlled innings have been way better than the required rate anyway and that, I add, is beyond the capabilities (and dreams) of most other batsmen.
Viru
What irks me and pushed me to pen this down is the fact that such a strong player, who is capable of much more than what he has achieved so far, does not realise it. Nor does anyone else (or I am just too paranoid). He is capable of winning matches consistently for India all on his own, not just once in a while; but for that, he needs to respect good deliveries and play carefully enough not to fall into traps set for him. To begin with, he can stop going for those sixes, taking them as a personal challenge to clear the ropes even if there is a fielder at the boundary waiting for him. It is fun to watch such challenges, yes, but not when he gets out that way when we badly need to win the match... And no, this is not an individual game to sell those 'that's how he plays' or 'playing the natural game' arguments.

Yes, he is more creative with the bat than most others (he is, after all, the only 'clone' of Sachin we have till date) and is even more creative and straightforward with his words, but he is not my favourite player...yet.

Only when he plays with the intention of truly winning it for the team will I call him selfless or even contemplate comparing him to the original version of the Clone. That will be the day he would enter my personal hall of fame and that will also be the day bowlers from all over the world would be truly and completely afraid of the batsman who is Virender Sehwag.

 


More about Aswin here. He also wants to use this space to say that he is just an amateur fan with a lot of random, possibly useless thoughts like the one described in this article.


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  • surya on 2010-06-02 07:37:10
    The reason you attribute to him being selfish is also the man's true genius..How do you explain the phrase "respecting good balls"?..He doesnt see it that way and thats why you see him murdering some pretty good balls too..thats why he manages to elevate himself where none has ever reached
  • Aswin on 2010-06-02 12:43:22
    "...murdering some pretty good balls too" - and getting out at times because it was a good one.


    As explained in link:***********holdingwilley.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=591, he is a genius. Yes.

    My argument is only that the word selfless should not be associated with him. In the interest of the really selfless players.
  • Aswin on 2010-05-12 23:09:59
    Come on, Scoring three sixes & a four in a 22 is not an achievement. End of day, 22 is not a good enough score for even the worst Indian opening batsman ever.

    And yes, the difference is exactly that. He goes for a shot knowing fully well that there is more than a good chance of getting out... a risk he should not take when representing his nation in a sport.

    Your argument (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't) will hold if they were Gambling instead of playing cricket.

    Throwing your wicket away and calling it "natural game" is the height of carelessness.
  • Lakshmanan on 2010-05-12 16:24:42
    That is his style of play. I accept he got out in many occasions due to poor short selection. But that is natural game. more than 90 % of the time every batsmen in the world get out due to a mistake of his own and most of the time that mistake happens to be poor short selection. Even in the same matches were he got out in 30s and 40s he should have send many good deliveries to 4s and 6s. No batsman will play a shot knowing he would get out in that ball. Some times things don't work your way and you are dismissed thats it. That is his natural game.

    And we have to accept this very fact that no player in the world can score century in each innings he bats. Hence i don't see him as a selfish player because of the above mentioned reasons.


    And about that 195 discussion, come on..., Bradman hit more than 300 runs in a single day. If he had got out in a last delivery of that day will u ask why the hell did he go for that shot after scoring 309 runs in a single day ? if he had that notion in mind he wouldn't have scored those many runs.
  • Aswin on 2010-05-12 10:36:35
    Well, I think after hitting 195 runs (which is definitely more than what is reqd from a batsman) he should have the liberty to get out / go for it. If not even then, when can he have fun? :)

    I was talking about the 30 odd test innings (around that) and the so many ODI innings in which he got out to unnecessary shots even before getting to 20 or 30.
  • rohan on 2010-05-12 10:25:44
    nice article,while reading this article,the first innings that came to mind was sehwag's 195 at the MCG,he had already hit katich for a six in the over,tried some fancy shots against him and holed out in the deep.Needless to say India lost the next 5 wickets for 20 or so runs, and a strong position was unecessarily lost

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