Tendulkar has given up his risk-taking edge, but Sehwag refuses to learn the lesson.
An enduring fable of cricket is that of a coach telling his ward, who has just smashed a ball, that the shot was awful. “Look where your feet are!” The immortal reply to that is, “Look where the ball is.”
Many young cricketers are capable of giving that reply. But with rising expectations, of others and their own, they submit to the coaching manual to increase their chances of success.
Sachin Tendulkar has traversed that path. When he burst on to the scene with all the impishness of one who did not care how he would be judged, Sachin provided unmitigated joy. With time, he succumbed to the expectation of those who claim to be the custodians of history and who constantly keep talking about greatness and responsibility in sport, which is all about going beyond what the others have managed. For that, it is imperative to break rules.
When Sachin scored a most soporific double century in Sydney four years ago, he earned the approval of the pundits for not once playing the cover drive, which had caused his downfall in the previous few innings.
It could not have earned Virender Sehwag’s approval. Like most cricketers of his generation, Sehwag grew up idolising Tendulkar. But Sehwag went beyond the others in some ways. First, he managed to model his batting on Tendulkar’s to such an extent that from a distance, given their similarity of build, they looked alike, especially when playing the straight drive, backfoot punch and whip off the hips.
Now, however, the time has come to wonder if Tendulkar, a fine batsman that he is, could still have learnt a crucial thing from Sehwag: the refusal to compromise.
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Boycott says Sehwag has no brains. Actually, he just has no clutter in his brains. He refuses to be a slave to the coaching manual, or batting technique, which has not got many batsmen very far. After all, even the perfect straight drive can be stopped.
Sehwag has a supreme sense of which ball can be hit to the boundary and he puts everything into it doing just that. He never takes the pitch or conditions into account.
He believes in himself like few have. In Australia four years ago he got out trying to reach his double century with a six. A few weeks later, he reached a triple century with a six. With 15 Test centuries and an average well above 50, he has not done too badly despite his audacity. His last 11 centuries have crossed 150. He has got runs against every team and all over the world, often when his teammates have looked clueless, as in the current Test.