As Virender Sehwag squeezed out that one run to score his first century in the last 15 months, millions of us would have looked up to the heavens along with him, thank whoever up there had finally made it happen.But then, some of us would have also looked down on the scoreboard and read this little word on the top of the team sheet: Bermuda.Yes, it was the Sehwag that we all knew once. The fours came in a torrent, the sixes in big bursts, he was toying around with the bowlers as if they were from a lower division Ranji side. But wait, weren’t they? You would have to nod your head to that even if grudgingly.Despite that searing 87-ball 114, loaded with 17 fours, three sixes, and every shot in the Najafgarh muscleman’s book — except for that slash over third man, which he seems to have cut out — the verdict on Sehwag will have to wait. Till Friday, when Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, and Muthiah Muralitaharan take over from the bunch who were turning their arms over for the first time in a World Cup — remember, we still have to beat Sri Lanka.Still, you can’t but help by heave a small sigh of relief that Sehwag, asked to give up his opening slot and come in at No 3 this time, did actually get those runs on the board. You can’t help but hope, and pray, that this would be the turning point of what might just be India’s first step back from the edge of this tournament.Ask Yuvraj Singh, who came up with a mind-boggling 83 runs in just 46 balls, with seven stunning sixes to power India to 413 for five, their highest ever one-day score, their first 400-plus, the highest for any team in any World Cup.But Sehwag, who set it all up, would not give us a clear answer. In the beginning, when he slashed twice at slow, wide balls, lucky this day to miss the edge — will Sri Lanka let him escape? Then, when he swished again on 96, steepled another shot just over cover on 97, scrambled back to his crease in time on 99 — will the nerves hold four days later?In between, though, the 29-year-old had the weak Indian network in the stands more than something to SMS home about. Two sixes in one over, three crashing fours in another, through midwicket, through covers, over long-on, over extra-cover. Thankfully, he managed to cover up for the bizarre struggle that was unfolding at the other end.Sourav Ganguly was struggling to get to the ball, bogged down in a strange world of his own. At the end of the 15th over was over, he had crawled to just 11. At 14, he popped up a catch to long-on that was dropped. Finally, in the 19th over, he got it right with a huge six off burly left-arm spinner Dwayne Leverock, and followed it up with another one over later. Dada finally fell for 89, but showed with that angry slash in the air after getting missing a lollypop from off-spinner Charles Borden that this was far below par, by his standards.Nobody else was complaining, though, the two had put up 202 runs in 178 balls. And Bermuda was going, going, and finally gone thanks to Yuvraj and that 122-run partnership off a mere 62 balls with Sachin Tendulkar. India had piled up a mountain of runs, and and more importantly, cranked up the run rate, which is so crucial to their survival in the Caribbean this week.There was a brief flicker of hope, some humour, for the island nation of 65,000 though. At the very beginning of the Indian innings, in the first ball of the second over. That was when 120 kgs, in the form of Leverock, the prison warden-turned-left arm spinner, took off with a superhuman effort, stuck his right hand out, and latched on to an edge from a stunned Robin Uthappa.India 3/1, and you could hear the sniggers all around. Would Bermuda actually do a Bangladesh now? But Sehwag quickly turned that into a cruel joke on the coconut island, splicing their bowling open, and draining the soul out of their bouncy campaign.Looking back on the Bangladesh defeat, coach Greg Chappell had said yesterday, “Now, we face a challenge ahead of us. That was what the World Cup was always going to be. We knew that there might come a situation where we would encounter a lot of matches that were going to be must-wins. From our point of view, it has started too early¿ Being scared is not going to help us. We must concentrate on playing good cricket, not worry about the outcomes.”He went on: “There are some issues that need to be discussed. We need to get back on track and start putting ourselves in the same frame of mind as in the last two series, which was being relaxed and confident. We have been in such situations before and bounced back. This side has tremendous resilience, as we have seen in the past.”Today, he will be the first to admit that the Bermuda game was just a tiny step in that direction. He knows, Sri Lanka’s waiting around the corner.
