Sehwag's Kochi knock was extraordinary

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Putting mind over matter is not as simple as self-improvement books may suggest. While most intelligent people have a way of managing it in life, gifted athletes do it far more often in the sporting arena.
Virender Sehwag may be credited with greater natural ability than thinking prowess but even he finds extraordinary ways to be able to overcome adverse conditions to shine in a more wholesome way with his talent.

Sehwag’s classy knock on a terrible pitch in Kochi was as fine an example of the opener’s gift of adapting to the conditions as we are likely to see. Always an instinctive batsman who seems quite happy to commit himself to strokes, he knew he had to suppress all his instincts to survive and reconstruct his team’s innings after a couple of deliveries rolled on like crabs on sand.
Many in his position at the non-striker’s end would have given up any hope of compiling a substantial innings.
Not the one to play a waiting game, Sehwag shifted to lower gears to navigate his way rather than blast out of trouble, which is probably the only way he knows at least in limited-overs cricket.
One reason why Sehwag finds T20 a bit of a puzzle is he likes to hit the ball harder than he does in other forms of the game. With someone so gifted with timing, he hardly needs to make any extra effort to slam the ball.
When he walked across to the umpire to complain about the grubber that had his colleague so hopelessly leg before, one would have thought the opener had decided this was not going to be his kind of pitch. But, having told his team that he was planning to bat longer in T20s, Sehwag had no choice but to buckle down to keep a captain’s words.
He had done the same before the World Cup, which is when he came up with that opening game classic against Bangladesh.
The fusillade of strokes he unleashed towards the end represented the real Sehwag. So well had he done on a pitch of doubtful bounce that the opponents who had seen it for half the match would have already been spooked by what the surface potentially had in store.
Such doubts are enough to kill enthusiasm for the fight even though the pitch itself was to shed some of its low bounce as the game wore on.
The season’s IPL matches have been played on a few doubtful pitches. Teams starting poorly on slow pitches on which the ball does not really come on to the bat have had huge problems recovering.
All the more reason why Sehwag’s knock was extraordinary. Pacing an innings in T-20 cricket is not as easy as it sounds. The adrenaline rush can make batsmen go for the outrageous stroke at any time. And restraint is not exactly Sehwag’s longest suit. A certain mature way of thinking is creeping into his limited-overs batting too and that is a great sign indeed.