Bajrang Bali

His first hit to the fence, usually just a couple of deliveries after taking guard, signals a hectic activity ahead. Like a bell that clangs on a sleepy railway station to announce the arrival of an express train. The platform enlivens to the arriving locomotive, slumber gives way to alertness, anticipation sets in, and people perk up to hear the blast of a fog horn and the conjoined rumble of hundreds of wheels to follow.

By the time he is done, he usually leaves behind blood, gore and carcass, the remains of a furious hunt by a wild Tiger. The bystanders who just witnessed another gruesome murder of the bowling go back home dizzy headed and awed by the sheer ferocity of this soft-spoken man on the crease. Virender Sehwag is as feral a thing known to Cricket since Sir Vivian Richards. In the three decades that of watching (and understanding a bit of) Cricket, I have not seen a player so unrelentingly aggressive as Virender Sehwag.

His centuries are huge, yet there isn't any evidence of struggle or labor as he builds them. Not one of his big innings can be called an epic effort of clamber. They are not carved with the delicacy of an artisan, not engineered with the precision of a scientist, nor compiled brick by brick like a patient mason. Instead, he shells the poor scoreboard with booming runs coming off the turrets of his battle tank. Runs come at his mercy as the bowlers become almost secondary in the whole transaction of runs. Like an Alpha male Tiger, he takes his share of meat when and how he wishes, and nobody can do anything about it. 

About a decade ago he started off happy to be called a 'Tendulkar clone' but quickly grew out of it and developed an impressive resume of his own over the years. One of only three men to twice reach triple hundreds in Test cricket, rubbing shoulders with certified all-time greats Bradman and Lara. The fastest Triple century of all time…and perhaps the next fastest of all time too ! Three of the four fastest double centuries ever recorded in the history of Test cricket. The most double centuries by any opener (correct...not Gavaskar, not Hutton, not Boycott, not Hayden, not Greenidge, not Bobby Simpson). The most double centuries overall by an Indian.  Possibly the highest batting strike rate of all batsmen who have a balance of more than 5000 runs in Test cricket. 11 successive century scores of 150 or above, something even Bradman did not accomplish. No less than 13 of his 19 Test centuries have gone past the 150 mark, underlining the fact that he runs much deeper inside the enemy lines than one would expect for a purely aggressive player. In perspective, Bradman had 18 150+ scores among his 29 centuries, which is still a marginally less than Sehwag's conversion ratio of 13 in 19 ! No other batsman in the history of Test cricket has scored 64 of every 100 runs via hits to the fence. And only he and Bradman have scored a double century in  single day...on three occasions.

Sehwag plays in an Indian Test team that has had at least four-five world class batsmen other than himself in the roster at any given time. (The legendary "Fabulous-4" of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly; and Gautam Gambhir filling in as the 4th fabulous after Ganguly's departure, not to ignore M S Dhoni low down). Despite being surrounded by such a star studded line up of batsmen, Sehwag's uniqueness is evident in the fact that in 17 of his 19 century innings he has been the top scorer for his team…and on most occasions the top scorer by miles ahead of the next best score in the innings. Only Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir have outscored Sehwag the centurion, once each. 208, 115, 193, 126, 145, 147, 122, 91, 131…..this is how much ahead he was from the next highest scorer in the match, in some of his bigger innings. 

Sehwag is the explosion of a Kolhapuri Lavangi mirchi (a type of a fiery pepper) in the curry…you may have all the fabulous-4 ingredients in the recipe, but the fire in the dish comes from Sehwag.

Most opening batsmen will start off a Test match cautiously. Sehwag, on the contrary, will make even the best of the opening bowlers start their Test match cautiously. There won't be many opening batsmen around who would carry this kind of an aura (with the possible exception of Matthew Hayden of the recent past and Gordon Greenidge of the not so recent past).

In many ways he is very similar to another ballistic batsman from the past by the name of Sir Vivian Richards. Sehwag is as destructive a force as - if not more than - the legendary Vivian Richards. His intimidating strokeplay can make the best of bowlers look like infants in soiled diapers. His relentless aggression can inflict the same sorrow and despair upon the opposing captain as Vivian Richards did.

While the end result of both Sehwag and Richards remains the same - a hopelessly demoralized opposition - there is one subtle difference too between them.

Richards from what I saw and understood, played (toyed with, as some may put it) against bowlers. His desire to dominate and inflict humiliation was focused on the bowlers, and especially the best ones around. It seemed he wanted the most reputed of bowlers to go home crying to their mothers, and to give them nightmares of his smirking face for the rest of their lives.

Sehwag, unlike Richards, seems to direct his fury and power upon the poor ball, rather than upon the bowler. It doesn’t matter who the bowler is. If the ball is there to be hit, Sehwag has to hit it. His body lacks the reflex that would prevent him from doing anything otherwise. His bat lacks the mind game factor that Richards' bat possessed. Bowlers have a mind, the ball doesn’t, so how does one play mind games with the ball? :)  Sehwag's play is innocent in a way. He isn’t a bully, he isn’t like a mercenary set up on a planned destructive mission by someone. His batting is born of a simple and uni-functional mind which knows nothing else but to attack.

It is one of the heady experiences of cricket to watch the calm and detached Sehwag stand in the eye of the hurricane created by his very own rapacious bat, as hapless bowlers and fielders get torn and thrown around in a heap of debris.

Some may point out that despite Sehwag's animal aggression, only 6 of his 19 centuries have really resulted in wins for India. Agreed. But there is a possible explanation for it, which is that Sehwag is too fast to be effective. He blazes blindingly while he is at the crease and accumulates a lot of runs in the process. But his scoring density is so high compared to anyone else's that even though he scores a huge 150, it is still done in just 2 or 3 sessions flat. After his departure, there is still enough time left for the opponents to recover from the shambles he put them into. A Test match is worth 15 sessions. A good team can withstand 2-3 sessions of mayhem from Sehwag, wait for him to depart and then claw back. It is for this same reason that Rahul Dravid, Jaques Kallis, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh, Inzamam Ul Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, and such great batsmen of our time have been more successful from a match-result perspective than Sehwag. An innings of a big score coming from them is spread over a much longer duration, which might lessen the scope for their opponents to spring back into the game.

I would say that if 'rampancy' was a profession, Sehwag would be the Warren Buffet of it. After all this is a man who once hit a six to get to a triple century !