Just the way Sehwag bats

An Indian journalist standing in front of me in the buffet said that Sehwag was arrogant for chasing wide ones before lunch. It seemed ridiculous.

When Brad Haddin, after playing a big shot, says it’s just the way he bats, it’s a hard pill to swallow, considering his ever-diminishing batting average, currently at 36. When Sehwag says it’s just the way he bats, even if by that he meant naked with only a helmet of whipped cream on his head, his way of batting means an average of 52.

So the fact that he waved (and by waved I mean practically threw himself off his feet) in the last over before lunch, that is just the way he plays. There aren’t many pauses when Sehwag bats; he’s more MTV than Jim Jarmusch.

But there was one when Nathan Lyon bowled to Rahul Dravid.

As far as prey goes, a person who was an unknown groundsman 12 months ago is the sort Sehwag would swat away with his tail rather than eat. Lyon is clearly misnamed when in any sentence with Sehwag. Luckily for Lyon, in his first three overs, Sehwag only came on strike for two balls. Lyon was allowed to start against the equally skilled, but less homicidal, Dravid. Bowling to Dravid is not easy. His footwork against spinners is so precise it’s almost scalpel-like. But he lets you breathe a while longer. At the start of Lyon’s fourth over he was facing Sehwag, and even though that’s backwards in traditional cricket terms, that is what it was. The first ball Sehwag easily cut away to point. Two runs. It was about as soft as Sehwag was going to get on Lyon.

Next ball, Sehwag got a little more elaborate and twirled through a cover drive. Two. It wasn’t middled but it was one of the few boundaries free to him. Michael Clarke was protecting his young spinner with a long-on, deep midwicket and deep backward square, all locked up.

The next ball wasn’t elaborate; it was brutal. Four runs. It was the sort of drive Sehwag plays when he has had to watch his team-mate place the ball instead of outright smacking it. Also, he picked long-off, because, like with the ball before, he was thinking about his batting. He’s not a slogger; he’s a batsman in a hurry. Sometimes in a massive hurry.

On Lyon’s fourth ball Sehwag came after him again. Four. It was hit with more vicious power and was straighter than the previous shot. He had started at point, moved to cover, gone to mid-off and was now straight.

Sehwag’s bottom hand was drooling over Lyon.

The next ball was never going to be pretty.

Sehwag launched at Lyon like a vicious predator down the wicket. But Lyon has guile and character, so he deceived Sehwag for a moment. Most batsmen would have pushed or dropped their hands at the ball. Sehwag did what can only be called a Dhoni, and his right hand whipped the ball flat and hard, straight to the long-on fielder. It was ugly, and unnecessary, but you had to like the way he went for it, even if it wasn’t smart. David Warner tried to get under it, but either dropped a tough chance or was just beaten by the turf.

Either way, it was only one run. And Lyon was now bowling to Dravid.

Five consecutive balls from Lyon had gone for 13 runs and had him very nearly out. The next over would be epic. Man v beast. The destroyer v the green-thumbed spinner. Sehwag and the fresh meat he desperately wanted to taste again.

Lyon’s next over was actually a maiden, which means to all cricket fans that Dravid was facing. By the time Lyon bowled another over, more than an hour later, Sehwag had lost his much more evenly balanced battle with James Pattinson.

It was, of course, still the red-mist lust for a boundary that did him in. Maybe it makes him arrogant or selfish, but I think it makes him Sehwag, and I doubt I’ll ever get sick of just the way he bats.