Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Virender Sehwag will be restored to his opening position in India’s opening game against Kenya in the Champions Trophy here tomorrow but he has been asked not to rush things and bat as he does in Test matches.
Indian captain Sourav Ganguly said Sehwag had been dropped in the batting order for one game so that he could watch play a bit and get his confidence back. “It was a one-off game (at Lord’s) — Sehwag will be back as an opener and Laxman will come at No 3,” Ganguly said after an indoor session at the Rose Bowl this morning.
Ganguly said the instruction to Sehwag was to bat the way he does in Test cricket and judge the ball on merit before unleashing his strokes. “We have spoken to him. He scores runs in Tests all around the world. You have to understand he is a strokemaker and it is not fair to ask him to just go and defend or leave balls outside the off-stump. That’s not the way he plays and that’s not the way he has scored all his runs. But he should probably bat the way he does in Test cricket. He should look to play the ball on merit rather than just try to get the maximum runs straight away.”
Ganguly feels Sehwag is too good a batsman to fail again and again, though things have not gone his way lately. “He has been opening all the time and he’s been exposed to the new ball and it has not gone his way recently. Sometimes it helps if he can sit with his pads on and watch play for a bit. That is why he went to bat low down the order in the Lord’s game.”
