da cassino： All those who have classified Virender Sehwag as an exciting one-day strokeplayer who does nothave the temperament for the longer game had better think again
da bet esporte： Amit Varma07-Jul-2005
Virender Sehwag: loves to smash it through cover
(c) AFP
All those who have classified Virender Sehwag as an exciting one-day strokeplayer who does nothave the temperament for the longer game had better think again. Sehwag showed today, as hehas in the past in Tests at Bloemfontein, Trent Bridge and Mumbai, that playing strokes andbeing judicious are not contradictory qualities. He played with the discretion of a quintessential Test player today, while hitting everything that was hittable.His 128 came off 212 balls at a strike-rate of 60% – not quite as belligerent as his one-dayperformances, but pretty much the rate the dominating Australians play at most of the time.Consider where his runs came. Sehwag is normally a fluent strokeplayer in the point region andjust behind – while he gets a lot of his runs there, he had also got out on occasion slashingto gully. Stephen Fleming played to this tendency of his: in the first Test, Fleming sometimeshad three gullies and a third man for Sehwag, and he followed a similar policy this time.Sehwag’s response: to eschew all shots in that region. Only three of Sehwag’s 128 runscame in the point region – so much for all of Fleming’s gullies. This is an astonishingstatistic that indicates the thought that Sehwag has put into the game, and his capacity forself-denial – an essential characteristic in any Test player.Where Sehwag got his runsRunsRuns off boundariesBehind wicket – off side54Square of wicket – off side30Cover – off side5332Front of wicket – off side244Front of wicket – on side84Midwicket – on side2314Square of wicket – on side84Behind wicket – on side44As many as 53 of Sehwag’s runs came in the cover region, 23 came in the midwicket region and32 in the V between mid-on and mid-off. The 22 full-length deliveries bowled to him went for37 runs and the 18 short balls he received went for 17 – Sehwag, with his superb range ofshots, took full toll of the loose balls he received. Fleming might have plugged the pointregion – but what about the rest of the field.
