Analyzing Sehwag's batting

[honestbharani]

Sehwag, against all conventional wisdom, happens to be one of the best TEST match openers around at the moment. And he also happens to be one of the most underperforming one day players around at the moment as well, which goes against conventional wisdom too. Wat could be the reason for it?


First of all, Sehwag's weakness is all too clear. He cant play the incoming deliveries from a good length that well. It is obvious. VAsbert Drakes, Matthew Hoggard and now Dwayne Smith and Brett Lee have exposed it. Then how come has he still been so successful in test cricket? I think the reason is because it is very difficult to bowl really good inswingers consistently. An inch or two off means an easy clip to the leg side for a two or a four or at least a single. And generally, GENERALLY, most batsmen tend to be more comfortable playing the incoming deliveries than the outswingers. Therefore, a single means going back to bowling good outswingers to the other batter. It is very tough for a bowler. Sehwag is pretty good off his legs too, which complicates the issue. Therefore, to keep him quiet or get him out, it has to be almost the perfect inswinger. Half an inch off line and he will clip it away easily. Therefore, the bowlers starts to go back to bowling outswingers. And that is the problem. 60% of the time, SEhwag can get them away. That will perhaps explain why he has been able to find success even though he has an obvious weakness at the test match level.


The ODI failures though, are hard to understand. It is perhaps the Slater syndrome or it is perhaps the fact that he can't handle a spread field (Even if most of them are inside the circle). What do you guys think?

 

[social]

Lately, in test cricket, if I'm not mistaken it has been either a feast or a famine indicating that the eyes may not be as sharp as they once were.

However, as you point out, his so-called weakness is rarely exposed thereby confirming the small margin of errors allowed by high quality test batsmen.

 

[archie mac]

Watching him in this latest OD series, I think he is getting trapped (should this be two ps or one?) on the crease, and looks a big chance of going LBW, not sure if the stats support this?

 

[adharcric]

The key is to sneak one on off-stump that either stays low or comes in, early on. Once he gets set and feels confident, he might even start playing those incoming deliveries on off-stump well. He's suspect early against the inward movement for sure.

 

[Jono]

As less hair remains on Sehwag's heads, the less runs he produces. That's my theory.

To be balding at such a young age is ridiculous.

 

[nightprowler10]

That means Rana's career should be over soon.

 

[Jono]

Rana's not in the Pakistan team for his runs

 

[BhupinderSingh]

Wasim Jaffer=Truly a world class opening batsman & one of the best openers around.
Verinder Sehwag=Flat Track Bully(He's scored his triple hundred & all double hundreds against Pakistan on dead wickets).

 

[nightprowler10]

Rana's not in the Pakistan team for his runs

You know I meant in terms of wickets..

 

[TT Boy]

Wasim Jaffer=Truly a world class opening batsman & one of the best openers around.
Verinder Sehwag=Flat Track Bully(He's scored his triple hundred & all double hundreds against Pakistan on dead wickets).

I possibly agree with the last point but Wasim Jaffer has also only scored big runs on dead wickets. Failed miserably on the only competitive wicket in the West Indies and after a good first test against England looked more than suspect in the second and third test matches. Be interesting to see how he gets on in South Africa.

 

[C_C]

I dont think his vulnerability to the early inswinger is a huge issue for him. Every batsman has atleast one aspect where he is distinctly weaker than the rest-even the best one in history of batting was rather mediocre on wet wickets. He does have a slightly bigger vulnerability to the inswinger early on than most great batsmen have to their particular vulnerability and that might be the ultimate reason why he might ultimately just fall short of the Viv-Tendy-Lara category of batsmanship.
IMO, watching Sehwag bat, i can see that he absolutely adores batting. When batting, Sehwag is a very instinctive player IMO, who puts far less thought in his batting than most batsmen do. His mindboggling reflexes, hand-eye coordination and rather good shot selections means he makes up for it in the test arena but not ODIs. And why that is so ? I think it is precisely this instinctive nature and utter lack of analytical thought to his batting means that he can be set up rather easily. Unfortunately, the window only exists very early on in his innings and in test cricket, worldwide, he comes in with atleast two slips and very frequently three slips and a gully. Meaning there is less manpower to position or create a 'trap'. Unfortunately for the oppopsition, by the time they DO spread the field around in tests, he is well on his way to a century and he is far too set to be undone by a simple trap. He either has to bollox up or the bowler has to bowl a very good ball.
But in ODIs, teams rarely have more than 1 slip in place and they have more men to set him up by drying up his 'bread and butter' run-scoring channels.
Sehwag can bat according to the situation i think- ie, if the bowling is good, he doesnt get too flustered in keeping quiet (and often his innings in tests show this). But if you cut out the runs not because of good bowling but because of good field setting (ie, a 4 ball saved by the fielders) he does tend to get rather flustered. And this again, is far more possible in ODIs than Tests.

 

[Turbinator]

That means Rana's career should be over soon.

Not really....this means that Rana's runs our decreasing, the number of runs he gives up that is.......

 

[Rajeev]

Perhaps the field position in test cricket makes him more comfortable to play his shots

 

[open365]

It's a strange one.

I think that maybe he might feel more pressurised in the one day situations where he is expected to score at a higher rate. He might not score for an over or two and feels he has to so he forces the issue and gets out.

In test matches it's not a problem because he allways scores above the expected rate anyway.

 

[adharcric]

Perhaps the mangement should tell every single batsman in the Indian lineup to play the role of a stablizing batsman and not an aggressive one. They might stop playing rash shots and they'll still score quickly because they're all naturally aggressive (apart from Dravid, who doesn't need instructions, and Kaif, who won't matter).

 

[silentstriker]

Perhaps the mangement should tell every single batsman in the Indian lineup to play the role of a stablizing batsman and not an aggressive one. They might stop playing rash shots and they'll still score quickly because they're all naturally aggressive (apart from Dravid, who doesn't need instructions, and Kaif, who won't matter).

And Dhoni, who won't care.


But seriously, I think your suggestion is a good one. We definatly need to rely more on singles and twos, and less on boundries. It makes all aspects of our game better. And there has to be some way to punish a bad shot, even on the rare occasion Dravid does it . Like being put on the boundry and made to run for a day and a half.

 

[Dravid]

Sehwag is a good opener in tests. As an aggressive batsman he plays better in the slower version of the game for some reason. But calling him one of the best openers in the world right now, I think thats pushing it a little bit.

I like his game but every bowler knows his weakness and every bowler can get him out. As long as he has his weakness and doesn't build on it, I wouldnt put him in the one of the best test openers today group.

 

[JBH001]

If it wasn't for the fact that he ooozes talent out of his pores, it would be all too easy to classify Sehwag as a flat track bully, considering the nature of the places he has scored some of his best runs and the attacks he has made them against.

He is fantastic to watch - but I do wonder if he has the technique to be a top class opener consistently over a sustained period of time.
It will be interesting to see how it goes in SA and if things go badly there, it will also be interesting to see if he has the capacity to work on his game to iron out those kinks.

 

[C_C]

btw, what i do think is remarkable from Sehwag is his adaptation to opening in test cricket.
Currently he has 3727 runs from 72 innings (3 not outs) for a 54.01 batting average, along with 11 tons and 10 fifties.
Touch inconsistent but a bit Lara-esque in making it up somewhat with huge knocks.
But it is important to remember that this chap had no experience opening a match, even at first class level, before opening for India just over 4 years ago.He's always been a middle order bat at FC level and i think to this day,when Veeru does play FC cricket in India,he comes 1 down or 2 down and doesnt open.
It is quite astounding how he's adapted to opening in tests which i consider to be a specialised batting position that you dont just give to any quality middle order bat and expect them to succeed.

 

[Matt79]

Perhaps the mangement should tell every single batsman in the Indian lineup to play the role of a stablizing batsman and not an aggressive one. They might stop playing rash shots and they'll still score quickly because they're all naturally aggressive (apart from Dravid, who doesn't need instructions, and Kaif, who won't matter).

i wouldn't have thought Sachin would need or appreciate advice on batting in ODIs either