Such a tame end to such a brilliant innings! Virender Sehwag’s superb batting against Pakistan has shown those who think India can be blasted out by pace that India can and will counter attack and give it as good as it gets. Gone are the days when all one had to do was to have a long run up for Indians to worry about what was in the offing. Mind you, there were still plenty of players who could combat pace but there were also many who just didn’t want to play it and made it obvious as well. Thereby giving rise to the feeling that Indians don’t like pace. As if others do. Considering the fact that India does not have genuine speedsters in their domestic game, the record of Indian batsmen against pace is far better than those who have pace bowlers in their midst, but still can’t play it.
No doubt Pakistan will try and bowl the same short stuff at Sehwag from the next Test but he is such a street smart player that he will find ways to score off that as well. One can’t have 11 Test hundreds unless one applies mind to batting and though Sehwag might give the impression that he is an instinctive player, he does give plenty of thought to not just his batting but other aspects of the game as well and that’s why he has been promoted to vice captain of the team.
It’s a pity that he got out when Dravid and he were just a boundary away from a world record but then there are some records that are extremely difficult to erase and may be this opening-partnership record is one of them. Just about every team now has decent new ball bowlers, so to get to 413 without being separated, is not going to be easy and that’s why the disappointment that having got so close, Sehwag got out trying a guide over the wicketkeeper’s head. With him it’s invariably the unexpected and he relishes challenges and tries to go where nobody else has before and that’s what makes him such a hard batsman to bowl to. He of course can play the under cut over the slips head very well but this was a new challenge to hit the ball over the wicketkeeper and though he didn’t get it this time, don’t think for a moment that he won’t try it again. Of course his team was in a good position and so there was no harm trying that shot and so he did. To find fault with him for that is to nitpick. Sami was trying to sledge him when he was on 246, and did Sami look like a proper school kid who picks up a fight just for the heck of it. Sami better think about his bowling than the shots the opponents are trying, for though Pakistan have a lot of faith in him he hasn’t delivered to any great degree. On these sort of pitches a swing bowler has a better chance, as he will be still able to move the ball and beat the batsman even if there’s no bounce in the pitch.
India may well have hit upon an opening pair to reckon with and it’s a perfect combo as well, for if there’s an attacking player at one end there’s rock solidity at the other end, so on the one hand the bowlers trying to blast their way, find a steel wall to get through and at the other end they get hit back as fast as they bowl.
Pakistan have made no change in their squad for the next Test and it looks like there won’t be any change in the Indian line-up either. Hopefully there will be a change in the preparation of the pitch, else we might be in for another action replay of the Lahore Test.
