Sehwag’s legacy is apparent

[Gunner_Mania]

There were moments during the recent series between England and Bangladesh when you started to wonder if your eyes were playing tricks. At times, you seemed to be watching a young Sanath Jayasuriya in action. Then, you asked yourself if Virender Sehwag had started batting left-handed. England may have won the series at a canter, but 21-year-old Tamim Iqbal left an indelible mark on proceedings, both at Lord’s and Old Trafford. In doing so, he offered glimpses of how the batting art has been transformed in the subcontinent. The region has produced great strokeplayers from the time that cricket was first played there. My grandfather used to tell me stories of CK Nayudu and the thousands that used to throng the maidans of British India when word spread that he was batting. Across the Palk Strait in Sri Lanka, Mahadevan Sathasivam had a dazzling array of strokes, and the flamboyance of personality to go with it. But both pre and post-independence for India and Pakistan in 1947, the batsmen considered role models for the young were those that played according to the original MCC manual, with high elbows and bat and pad inseparable. India had the two Vijays, Merchant and Hazare, and Pakistan had Hanif Mohammad. Those that took on the mantle never deviated much from that path. Sunil Gavaskar employed the hook shot early in his career but later became a master of playing the percentages. Zaheer Abbas, dubbed the Asian Bradman during his years in English county cricket, was also cast from the classical mould. Men like Majid Khan and Gundappa Viswanath, more inventive and cavalier in their approach, were never quite considered cut from the same cloth. The past two decades have seen an assembly line of batting greats emerge from the subcontinent – Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, from India, Inzamam-ul-Haq, from Pakistan, Aravinda de Silva, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, from Sri Lanka. And while all of them have been very different in approach and repertoire of strokes, there was little about them that could be termed unorthodox. Exposure to more one-day cricket saw more innovations, like the Tendulkar paddle-sweep, but by and large, they played Test cricket the way their predecessors had. All that changed with Jayasuriya. The old conventions, like giving the first session to the bowler, were hit for six as the man with the blacksmith’s forearms carved the ball over backward point or flicked it over square leg. It did not matter if it was the first over of the day or the last. If it was in his hitting zone, Jayasuriya went after it. Sehwag took that approach a step further. In his 76 Tests, he has scored 19 centuries, an astonishing success rate for a man who careers along at 80.87 runs per 100 balls. That strike-rate is better than Ricky Ponting’s (80.71) in one-day cricket. And the Australia captain is one of the masters of the limited-overs game. When Wisden named Sehwag as the leading cricketer in the world in 2009 [it was the second time he got the award], Scyld Berry, the editor of the almanac, wrote: “Sehwag has taken on the opposition from the first ball of India’s innings, shredding their confidence with his strokeplay, demoralising them as no Test batsman has done since Bradman, who scored at 61.2 per 100 balls. “Sehwag has to be first on the team-sheet to represent the world, whatever the game’s format. He would take on the Martians, however hostile and alien their attack, disrupting their lines and wavelengths; and, if he succeeded, as he normally does, he would make life so much easier for those who followed.†Many young players from the subcontinent idolise Tendulkar and speak of how he inspired them to play cricket. But in terms of style, the advent of talents like Tamim is a sign that it is Sehwag who has caused the biggest shift in the approach to Test cricket. It is no bad thing either. As Berry wrote: “Test cricket has been threatened by the greater excitement that is perceived in 50-over and 20-over cricket; it will not be if more batsmen emulate Sehwag.â€

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