Is it the end of the road for Sehwag?

Seeing Virender Sehwag at his best, thrashing bowlers for boundaries all around the park, has always been a cricket lover’s delight. However, in the present situation, Viru may find it difficult to make it back to the Indian team with the kind of form he is in. As a right handed opening batsman Sehwag has always been agressive. He is always looking for boundaries, no matter what situation the team finds itself in. The Najafgarh lad never shows much footwork in his batting, and it is simply the incredible hand-eye coordination that fetches him runs. Even in Test cricket, Sehwag never looks to defend much, but always wants to go after the opposition, hence his incredible strike-rate in Test cricket. Once he gets a decent start to his innings, he can be any bowler’s nightmare.

However, the kind of technique Sehwag possesses also makes him vulnerable to fast bowling in seaming conditions. Many a time, he shows no footwork while playing deliveries outside the off-stump, resulting in him getting a faint knick onto the wicketkeeper or first slip. It’s almost as if Sehwag’s feet get stuck to the ground.

For a man of his talent and caliber, Sehwag has had an ordinary career in ODI cricket . He has scored 8,273 runs in ODI cricket at an average of 35.05. The cause for this is the fact that many a time, Sehwag just gives his wicket away after getting good starts. The lack of footwork has also cost him his wicket on a number of occasions. Sehwag was India’s batting mainstay during his prime, but now it seems as if age is catching up with him, and the Nawab of Najafgarh has had to struggle for his runs.

Sehwag’s record in matches post the World Cup has been an ordinary one. Apart from the one big knock of 219 against the West Indies, the rest of the scores have been quite disappointing. His inconsistent run made the selectors ignore his case for inclusion in theteam, and he was left out of the team for the series against Australia, which is set to start this February.

Batting analysts say that Sehwag’s reflexes have slowed down with age, and that the great hand-eye coordination which he once possessed is now disappearing fast. His body can no longer sustain the rigours of the amount of cricket that is playednowadays.

The Nawab of Najafgarh now finds himself at crossroads, and with his failure to score runs in the domestic circuit added to the failure to grab the selctors’ attention, it might as well be the end of Sehwag’s international career.