For most Indian cricketers of the late 90's and early 2000's playing abroad was baptism by fire, especially for openers. Many people lasted the length of time-lapse frames in epic movies with the only possible exception of Virender Sehwag, the Delhi-born right hander. He is a polarizing chapter from the annals of Indian cricket. The purists stayed away from his batsmanship, the public adored it. Even within the public he had factions of supporters too - namely "Sehwag Haters" and "Sehwag Admirers." When one faction came up with the theory that his record was mostly skewed to the sub-continent, the other, pretty much centered on the same point only differently.
Spare a thought for his numbers - from 100 ode tests, Sehwag scored Eight and a half thousand runs at an average of close to 50 and a strike rate of 80 ode with 23 test hundreds to his name!
Those are numbers of a mighty fine player who succeeded in all conditions and against all opponents alike. He scored hundreds at the top grounds in the world like the MCG, Jo'burg, Trentbridge etc. He came close to scoring hundreds at the SCG and the famous Lords. He had scored many ODI hundreds in New Zealand too including what was at the time the fastest by an Indian.
Most of all, he is remembered for his sub-continental antics. When tests in the subcontinent bordered on the verge of being verbal to stalemate boring, this guy livened it up for a spectator just with his sheer belligerence. The two triple hundreds come to memory, the doubles he scored against Sri Lanka too. What's amazing about him is that he became the first Indian player to win the ICC test cricketer award later in that decade.
Given all these, you wonder why he hasn't gone on to play for India for a prolonged period at least in one or two formats, if not all. The press and the social media blame M S Dhoni for this, as if he's the hero-turned-villain of a mythological story or something. The Indian captain certainly had his reasons but whether they were substantial enough to drop a player of that calibre for long still remains a question mark though. The fact that Viru remained consistent in the IPL cricket and all meant that he was still worth the look-in. It happened with the likes of Harbhajan, Mishra, Uthappa, Gambhir not with Sehwag to the same extent.
He was picked in the side following his IPL heroics in 2013 for one test against Australia but was dropped again when he failed in that test. It was Dhawan who replaced Sehwag in the side and Dhoni being the captain made a conscious decision to bank on his "constant variables" over individuals like Sehwag.
Although they were not great pals on & off the cricket field, there was a respect between the two up to a certain point. The cracks in their relationship started to show up when the two really had a poke at each other during the CB series in Australia, 2012. Sehwag questioned Dhoni's captaincy strategy; Dhoni quipped back at Sehwag's fitness levels and pointed fingers at his fielding agility. The reports in the media exaggerated things to quite an extent, which made you feel there's more to the situation than meets the eye.
Although they weren't being exact, they certainly suggested the possibility of Dhoni bringing down the curtains of an illustrious career. Every cricketing story here has a sting in the tail like in the movies and god forbid if all the speculations drawn out by the media is or was, true.
I might be too old to remind you of the ending of Baahubali when the kingdoms great warrior/servant named Kattappa backstabbed its cult hero, Baahubali in the movie's penultimate moment. Like Dhoni-Sehwag, that also came out of the blue. What happened before it, what's gonna happen afterwards, what happened in between you never quite know for Indian cricket is like the myth itself. And Sehwag and Dhoni were two great characters from the myth.
Like Baahubali jumping off a clip, Sehwag envisioned preposterous situations of a test match really from a vantage point. He lured the crowds, he entertained them. He made his presence felt. He left a void. He was a cult hero. Whereas, Dhoni, on other hand resembled a great deal with the bald haired hero-turned-villain. He led his side on the big stage exceptionally and moreover, he was a great servant of the game too.
Being a fan of both those players, it’s a stretch of the imagination, at least for me, to even think that Kattappa(Dhoni) had in fact backstabbed Baahubali(Sehwag) from close quarters.
However, decades from now a day would likely come when both the individuals walk the streets for a living and people provoke the same old myth once again - Did Kattappa kill Baahubali? If so, why did he do it?
