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India have named their squad for the four Test tour of Australia. It’s not totally straightforward. We’ll talk about the bowlers separately, but batting-wise the big news is the return of Virender Sehwag.
We’ve read that India can’t pick Sehwag in the squad and not play him, which is technically bollocks, yet not without a grain or two of truth. Sehwag’s a big name.
If Sehwag does play – presumably opening with Wasim Jaffer – then the middle order would contain The Usuals as we’re going to call them on this one, solitary occasion. If Rahul, Sachin, Sourav and VVS all play – no first names needed here – then there’s no room for Yuvraj Singh, who only larruped a lightning-quick 169 in his last Test.
For his part, Virender Sehwag has been woefully out of form in every form of cricket since he was dropped.
This rather reads like we think the reselection of Virender Sehwag is a bad idea. Confusingly, we don’t. Virender Sehwag is brilliant. You don’t average 50 after 52 Tests without having an ounce of skill.
Some people think that Sehwag has been ‘found out’. This is true, but no more so than it was after about his third Test match. There’s not much to find out about Virender Sehwag. He likes to try and hit every ball for four. That’s pretty much his gameplan. That he succeeded for so long with such a pig-headedly flawed approach is proof of his talent.
He did get a bit fat though, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing – as previously explored at great length on this site.
Virender Sehwag proves his class by hitting 300 against South Africa
Virender Sehwag racks up 10th hundred in excess of 150
Of course Sehwag’s brilliant. That it should even be in question is baffling. You don’t score 250 runs at better than a run a ball without being brilliant.
I was going to say you don’t get a triple hundred without being brilliant, but sometimes you get lucky in that respect.
Sehwag’s selection is indeed a big surprise. However, it would be a great pity if Dinesh Karthik makes way for him. Karthik was brilliant in England and needs to be persisted with. A bad series against Pakistan and he’s started looking like Cullinan did against Warne (mentally, that is). He’s a lad for the future and deserves a better deal.
What’s more interesting is whether Jaffer & Ganguly would be “found out” against the uncomfortable OZ bounce. Jaffer looked totally out of sorts on the 1st day of the 3rd test v Pak when the ball was bouncing.
Karthik was indeed impressive. We wrote about the value of his and Jaffer’s partnerships in that tour.
We also suggested that they were worth more than the value of their own runs, but that that would be forgotten. We suspect that’s happening now.
It’s virtually impossible to drop a player who’s just hit a double hundred, although it’s not without precedent – it happened to Geoff Boycott once because he’d batted too slowly.
Ganguly’s probably got a bit more public support behind him than Boycs did, but we wouldn’t be at all surprised if he fares badly down under.
Conversely, he’s got a good eye and sometimes that’s enough if you’re in form.
no surnames surley.
I haven’t come across many who have picked out the obvious about Sehwag as you have. I have been fortunate to have seen him at various levels of the game including nets. Cricket and batsmanship immediately cease to be a burdensome disciplinary exercise and magically transforms into a game it really is.