In early 2014, I wrote a comment piece titled “India should not let Virender Sehwag fade away”. I never imagined that a time might come when I would be wishing the opposite. But it clearly has.
I must state upfront that I am a mega fan of Sehwag. He is — was — to me what Sachin Tendulkar is to most Indians. On multiple occasions I have risked life and limb to argue in public that Sehwag is a much greater talent than Sachin Tendulkar, and I still stand by that assessment.
I felt terrible when retirement happened to him when he was already out of the game. I would have liked him to finish off with a six. Instead, it ended in a series of dot balls and mishits. He had little choice but to call it quits once it became clear that he wasn’t coming back and a host of gifted youngsters had stitched up the top order among themselves.
Recently, however, Sehwag has returned to the limelight, and in a typically explosive fashion. He first made headlines when he mocked young Gurmehar Kaur on social media.“Pakistan did not kill my father, war did,” Kaur had said in a viral video that went viral. Sehwag’s response, “I didn’t score two triple centuries, my bat did,” landed him in controversy and dismayed his many fans, including me. It was felt, and not without justification, that he was poking fun at a martyr’s daughter.
Sehwag did clarify that his tweet wasn’t targeted at Kaur. But he couldn’t save me from being shamed by my pacifist friends, some of whom reacted as if I had personally asked him to post that tweet. Sehwag has capitalised on the publicity this controversy generated by maintaining a hyperactive presence on Twitter.
His tweeting style might remind many of his batting style — he goes all out to entertain the audience, without thinking too much about the consequences.
Last week, for instance, he tweeted a photo of himself and his wife, with the following caption: “Biwi ji has given me title of King. It’s like Chess. King can take only one step at a time and Queen can do whatever she wants to #HasiBand”. It got 2,100 retweets and 21,000 ‘likes’. The same day he also tweeted snaps of Saurav Ganguly and Shane Warne napping. Another monstrously inane tweet on World Environment Day was widely lampooned on social media, causing a lot of pain and embarrassment to me personally.
I have no doubt that Sehwag would make an excellent, web-based life coach. His wisecrack-heavy commentary at the Champions Trophy seems to be a hit among the hoi polloi, though serious followers of the game find it devoid of insights about the match situation.
I idolised Sehwag for his carefree, magisterial, and generous approach to batting— a stinging contrast, if not a rebuke, to the safe, dour and calculated run-making that had begun to characterise Tendulkar in his final, more productive years. So I find it hard to reconcile myself to my erstwhile hero stooping to social media slapstick to remain in the public eye. For me, Sehwag’s post-retirement antics, such as they are, are an affront to the legacy of his on-field exploits, and the stature they have given him.
Nonetheless, I can still live with his reincarnation as a Twitter maven or cricket commentator.
What really gave me sleepless nights was the prospect of him taking over as India coach. With Anil Kumble’s term ending, Sehwag had suddenly emerged as a contender . Here too, he made news for the wrong reasons – for sending in his application without a CV. Luckily for us, Kumble will keep the job.
The last thing India needed is a coach whose most profound pronouncement on the art of batting has been ‘see ball, hit ball’. To my mind, Sehwag is India’s greatest Test batsman. It would have been a grave injustice to the man if we had allowed him to become India’s worst coach ever.
