| A
year in the wilderness has, as the South Africans
realised last month, done the swashbuckling Indian
batsman immeasurable good. Virender Sehwag today
appears on course to fulfil a destiny written in
the stars .
 That
match was a microcosm of the ills that plagued Sehwag’s
game in the worst 12 months of his career. His presence
in the XI was in doubt on the eve of the game, with
sections of the tour management far from impressed
with his attitude and application. After a wretched
one-day series in which he was captain for the last
two games, four Test innings at Johannesburg and
Durban had fetched him just 45 runs. Rahul Dravid’s
intervention was crucial, though. When he walked
out to toss, Sehwag’s name was on the team-sheet,
even if there was a twist in the tale.
With India batting first, it was Dinesh Karthik
who accompanied Wasim Jaffer to the middle. By the
time the new-look pair was separated, they had 163
on the board. Shoehorned into the middle order,
Sehwag had much to prove when he walked in at the
fall of the fifth wicket. He batted with some of
the fluency of old for 40 before a careless shot
triggered a costly collapse.
On the fourth morning, the think-tank faced another
pivotal decision. The lead was 41, with the pitch
expected to crumble on the final day, and a decent
Indian total would have put them within touching
distance of a first series win in the Highveld.
Do they stick with Jaffer and Karthik, or twist
and gamble on Sehwag’s audacious stroke-making
ability? In the end, they went for the twist. It
lasted just three balls, before an outside edge
confirmed that South Africa’s new-ball bowlers
had Sehwag’s number.
As he walked off, some obits were already being
written. It didn’t help that Karthik batted
brilliantly lower down the order in an innings otherwise
characterised by self-doubt and excessive caution
from some of the game’s greats. Sehwag, moved
down and then up on a hunch, was a convenient scapegoat
as South Africa held their nerve to complete a stirring
come-from-behind series win.
Just over a month later, the insistence of some
saw him journey to the Caribbean as part of India’s
World Cup side. He would score a century there,
against Bermuda, but like most of his team-mates,
he came a cropper against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
in the matches that mattered. As the team returned
home, with the likes of Ireland and Bangladesh contesting
the Super Eights instead, each member knew that
there would be hell to pay.
For Sehwag, it was worse than most. Ever since he
scored a dazzling 105 on debut at Bloemfontein,
he had been an integral part of India’s Test
side. A few months later, in England, he opened
for the first time, scoring a superb century at
Trent Bridge. As the years passed, he established
himself as one of the most feared openers in the
game, scoring insouciant hundreds at venues as diverse
as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Gros Islet and
Chennai. There was also a buccaneering 309 in Multan,
the first triple-century ever by an Indian and the
spur for a famous series win across the border.
After another swashbuckling innings, this time 254
from just 247 balls, against the same opposition
in January 2006, the world’s best new-ball
bowlers still appeared lost for answers when it
came to containing him. With 11 centuries from his
first 40 Tests, he was well on his way to all-time-great
status. With Dravid no spring chicken, the captaincy
too appeared to be his for the taking when the time
came.
  
Fate, though, had other plans. He made just 40 in
the remaining two Tests as India surrendered the
series in dismal fashion at Karachi, and when the
English arrived in India a month later, they restricted
him to just one big innings. The murmurs were growing
louder by the day, and the word on Bowlers’
Street was that both the short ball at the ribcage
and the incoming delivery were potent weapons against
a man not especially fond of moving his feet.
When he had taken over as Indian coach a year earlier,
Greg Chappell had said that Sehwag was such a natural
talent that he wouldn’t unnecessarily fiddle
with his methods. At the same time, he uttered some
words of caution. “Veeru has had it all his
own way so far,” said Chappell. “His
real test will come with failure. How he emerges
from that will tell you how good he can become.”
After the blips against Pakistan and England, Sehwag
found solace on some exceedingly flat pitches in
the Caribbean. A session with Rudi Webster, the
sports psychologist whose inputs had helped Viv
Richards and Chappell in an earlier era, helped
him clatter a thrill-a-minute 180 in the second
Test, but on the only challenging pitch of the series,
at Sabina Park in Jamaica, he had scores of 0 and
4 as India rode piggyback on Dravid’s technical
mastery to script a series win.
The failures mounted after that in both forms of
the game, with the nadir being reached in South
Africa. With the World Cup at the focal point of
everything, Test form began to be confused with
performances in one-dayers, and so it was that Sehwag
found himself out in the cold for the Test matches
in Bangladesh after the World Cup. Once again, Jaffer
and Karthik capitalised on their chances, and when
the squad for England was announced later in the
summer, Najafgarh’s most famous son had missed
out.
The new kids on the opening block succeeded in the
old country as well, and Sehwag’s future appeared
pretty bleak as the new season began. Having spent
half a decade as the springboard for notable Indian
successes, both home and away, he now found himself
having to mix it with lesser lights at Ranji Trophy
level to try and win back his place.
 Sehwag,
though, was no VVS Laxman, who had forced his way
back into contention in 2001 with century after
century against hapless bowling attacks. Away from
the limelight, he appeared to lack motivation, and
the scores reflected that. If any batsman was going
to be selected from the Delhi side for the tour
of Australia, the favourites were Gautam Gambhir
and Aakash Chopra, not the out-of-sorts Sehwag.
When the list of 24 probables was announced, he
missed out, prompting Ian Chappell to say that India
would be crazy to head to Australia without the
man who had blitzed his way to 195 in just five
hours at the MCG on Boxing Day in 2003. Fortunately
for Indian cricket, Anil Kumble shared that view.
When the final squad was drawn up, Sehwag was in,
a wild-card pick in the eyes of most.
The man of the moment, though, was Yuvraj Singh,
six-hitting hero of India’s Twenty20 triumph.
When the Indian team took to the field on the opening
day of the series at the MCG, Sehwag was in the
dressing room, with a panoramic view of the venue
that his batting had set alight four years ago.
Yuvraj sleepwalked his way through a game that India
lost heavily, but remained in the mix when the team
was chosen for Sydney.
On a pitch where both his batting and canny off-spin
might have been decisive, Sehwag was again the onlooker.
Again, Yuvraj flattered to deceive, horribly, and
a match interspersed with a dozen controversial
moments finally ended with a heart-stopping Australian
victory in fading light.
Few spoke of cricket in the week that followed,
with headlines talking of allegations of racism
and the breakdown of the relationship between the
two sides. After a warm-up game in Canberra, India
arrived at Perth, a venue where no team other than
the formidable West Indies sides of old had won
in more than two decades.
 With
Yuvraj a lost cause, Kumble took a punt on Sehwag,
whose instinctive strokeplay had always bothered
the Australians. It was an inspired decision. Sehwag
didn’t script an epic, but scores of 29 and
43 and two crucial wickets were absolutely pivotal
in a low-scoring contest decided on the fourth evening.
Against all the odds, on a pitch where Shaun Tait
and others were expected to lead India’s batsmen
a merry dance, new life had been breathed into the
series.
At Adelaide a week later, India couldn’t quite
complete the turnaround. Sehwag though was unstoppable,
following up a fine 63 with a glorious 151, his
first century in the second innings of a game. In
a pressure situation where some of his illustrious
team-mates appeared to freeze like Lot’s wife,
he batted serenely for one of the great hundreds
of the modern era.
The chanceless triple-century at Chepauk last month
was the perfect way to put the exclamation mark
on his comeback. A three-pronged pace attack of
Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel were
expected to resume where the South Africans had
left off in Cape Town, but in stifling heat, Ntini
in particular was left shell-shocked by the array
of strokes that Sehwag unleashed. Ball after ball
was creamed through the covers, or whipped through
midwicket as his three hundreds took just 116, 78
and 84 balls, respectively.
 Sehwag
rated his triple-century in Chennai as even better
than the 195 at the MCG [2003] or the 155 against
Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Jason Gillespie at
Chepauk in 2004. “The conditions weren’t
in favour of batting climate-wise. The pitch was
perfect to bat on but it was extremely hot and humid.
It was very hard to stay out there for a long time.
If you’re playing in Australia or South Africa,
the weather is fine and you can stay out there as
long as you want. But in Chennai, those two days,
it was really tough. When your body gets tired,
you lose concentration and you make mistakes, but
that 319 was a chanceless innings.”
Mickey Arthur, South Africa’s coach, called
it “the best Test match innings I’ve
ever seen” and Sehwag himself spoke with some
feeling about the months in the wilderness. “When
I was dropped from the squad I was hurt because
I have a good record in Test cricket,” he
said. “So I was looking to prove to myself
that I am a good Test player and deserve a place
in the team. But that feeling of hurt was also good
for me because I was able to motivate myself and
concentrate better.”
His concentration was certainly beyond reproach
and the 319 put him in elite company – only
Sir Donald Bradman and Brian Lara had made two triple-centuries
before. But at the age of 29, the Sehwag story is
far from complete. They say that you have to deprive
a man of what he loves most to make him realise
its worth. Sehwag lost a year, but in doing so,
he may have gained something immeasurable, the strength
of will to go on and fulfil the destiny that was
written in the stars that day he announced his arrival
at Bloem in South Africa’s old heart of darkness.
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