That Virender Sehwag is massively influential needs no mentioning. There’s something about watching him walk in to open the innings, and watching him grow more and more destructive with each boundary. He was exactly that at Rajkot. But in this series, Sehwag has been influential in a different way.
Sehwag was made skipper for two matches after M. S. Dhoni was banned for a slow over-rate in the second ODI. While his captaincy itself cannot be evaluated based on two matches, he handled the tricky situations well.
The opener had his priorities clear as well. In the Cuttack game, he sensed India was losing its grip on the over-rate, and brought himself on to get through a few overs quickly. Sehwag’s clever off-spinners can do tricks in the air, and this time, it deceived Sangakkara.
Sehwag said he had enjoyed his stint as captain. “It’s been good and I’m enjoying it. There was no pressure, because I’ve been part of the team for so long. As captain, I just needed to take inputs from my players and make a collective decision.”
As captain, his clarity was his biggest strength, and India enjoyed this advantage in the matches at Cuttack and Kolkata. As a batsman, there’s not much more that’s needed to be said about him. Dhoni called him a “very special player whose talent no one can match up to.”
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