SPORTS | Wednesday, November 25, 2009 | Email | Print | 
‘Initially I worked hard and then played my shots’
Sandeep Narayan | Kanpur
It’s a pair made in heaven only there are no nuptial or matrimonial ties in this bond. Probably after the celluloid duo of Jai-Veeru in Sholay do we have a twosome that can probably be considered with the same adoration and reverence. Only this Viru has a Gautam to support him and together they are becoming the most feared and most dangerous opening pair in the cricketing circles. Their 233 was the new record for the first wicket against Sri Lanka as they erased the previous record of 171 runs between Manoj Prabhakar and Navjot Singh Sidhu at Colombo in 1993.
A decade ago or even five years back, India was struggling because of its make shift opening pairs and the entire pressure would be on the middle order but with the two, the home team seems to be over their opening slot troubles. But for Sehwag nothing gets better than playing with his state and India mate Gautam Gambhir, who he says complements him the best way possible like he did on Tuesday when Sehwag looked at unease early on.
“Gautam is in good form and I was not hitting the ball well in the early part of the innings and he was getting the boundaries and still we were maintaining a run rate of three runs an over. There was no pressure on me because he was playing the main batsman’s role. Because of that I knew if I faced the first ten overs or so, after that I can play my shots because they have three spinners and I know I am good against spin bowling,” Sehwag said after the end of day’s play.
“I think he is one of the best openers after Sunil Gavaskar. The way he is playing, I am sure he will break Gavaskar’s feat of 10 hundreds in 32 Tests. I was telling him that your target should be to get past that and then carry on from there,” he added.
While many successful pairs have seen good fortune because of their contrasting style of play, these two can emulate other’s style of play, as we saw on Tuesday, and simply put the bowling side in a conundrum.
“He is a very good and talented player who loves to score hundreds. When he played first-class cricket, I think he scored five consecutive hundreds. The kind of form he is in, he can score hundred in every Test match. The way he is batting, he is the next superstar of the Indian team,” Sehwag praised his ‘better half’ when asked about having Gambhir as his opening partner.
Sehwag’s presence has also been a boon for Gautam. Struggling against Murali initially, Gambhir, after some friendly advice from Viru hit a four on the very next Muralitharan delivery showing the influence one has on the other.
“I was just telling him to think big. I said ‘this wicket is good; if you think big you can score another hundred. If you stay there for three hours, you will get a hundred’. It worked and India now has the Test pair they always yearned for. On his calculated, meticulous yet exciting innings Sehwag said that he did not want to sacrifice his wicket the way he did in Ahmedabad. “They dropped my catches in Ahmedabad as well and here too they dropped a catch in the very first over. After that told myself that now I have to see off the first eight to ten overs and then everything will fall in place. I was just concentrating hard, telling myself to leave balls outside off-stump. I did that, I worked hard the first one and a half hours and after that I was playing my shots,” said Sehwag.
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