5 reasons why Virender Sehwag could have still fitted into the Indian Test team

Virender Sehwag has been in stupendous form of late in domestic cricket

One of the greatest Test openers of all time, India’s Virender Sehwag, recently announced his retirement from international cricket much to the dismay of his gigantic fan base not only in India but all over the world.

The driving force for this decision, as everyone could make out, was the manner in which the Indian national selectors had turned a blind eye towards him in the past few years.

But, looking at the way Sehwag has been batting in this season of the Ranji Trophy, you get a feeling that he could have easily played international cricket for at least another year if not two.

And the present scenario of India’s Test batting further orchestrates the fact that he should have been given another opportunity. Here are 5 reasons why Viru could have still fitted into the Indian Test team:

Team India’s struggles at the top of the order

Even though Murali Vijay looks to have hit a purple patch in his career as a Test opener for India, his partner at the other end, Shikhar Dhawan, has not been doing too much justice to his talent of late. The way in which he capitulated for a pair in the 1st Test of the India-South Africa series is an alarming sign and calls for a change in the opening pair, at least for now.

In such a situation, the inclusion of Virender Sehwag would have proved to be a quick solution for the selectors as they would have got ample time to find a new opening partner for the sublime Vijay or for that matter, wait for Dhawan to regain his touch.

Moreover, the pair would not have taken too much time to settle down as Sehwag and Vijay have already enjoyed success together in the past.

Viru’s current rich vein of form

The fact that he has scored 430 runs in just 7 innings at a stupendous average of 61.42 in the ongoing season of the Ranji Trophy speaks volumes about the kind of form Virender Sehwag is in.

Also, he clearly looked the best batsman among all those who played in the inaugural match of the All Stars T20 as he belted 55 off a mere 22 deliveries with six maximums.

Considering the way Sehwag is playing at the moment, we could have expected another double or triple for him against one of his favourite opponents, South Africa, had he played in the ongoing Test series. But that was not to be courtesy of the tough stand adopted by the selectors against Viru which forced him to hang his boots.

His ability to score in tricky conditions

While India won the 1st Test of the Gandhi-Mandela series thanks mainly to a superb bowling performance by the spinners, most of our batsmen looked to be struggling in what are supposed to be home conditions for them.

Virender Sehwag made a career out of scoring big centuries in conditions that were not very conducive for batting. Some examples for this are his 201 not out against Sri Lanka at Galle on a pitch where almost every batsman from both sides struggled and 106 against England at Trent Bridge on a swinging pitch in overcast weather conditions.

There have been quite a number of other instances when Sehwag has been at ease while others have found it difficult to come to terms with the conditions. This particular skill of the Delhi lad could have helped India’s cause on rank turners like the one in Mohali was.

His tendency to change the course of the match

No one knows better than Sehwag about how the course of a match can be changed in a matter of minutes. His career has many such instances where he has just walked in and swung the match in favour of India in 20 overs or so.

One of the famous ones was when he scored a heroic 83 in Chennai against England and allowed India to go for a 384-run chase instead of petering out a draw on the last day of the Test.

Not many players in the current Indian setup have this kind of ability, barring say a Virat Kohli, but then again, Sehwag was a different beast altogether. Including him in the team would have meant that we would have had someone to pull India out of a situation by going after the opposition bowlers.

His experience of scoring runs all over the world

Most batsmen in India’s current batting line-up are still coming to terms with the rigours of Test cricket and are relatively less experienced. Taking into account this situation, the presence of a Virender Sehwag, with all the wealth of experience he has of scoring runs both at home and away, would have been of great help to other batsmen.

They would have had someone to guide them in combating their struggles and emerging victorious, much in the same way as Viru was helped by people like Sachin and Dravid among others during his early years. Unfortunately, though, there wasn’t much room for an experienced guy like Virender Sehwag in the Test scheme of things for Team India.