Having experienced playing the T20 format much before than most of his fellow cricketers, former Indian batter Virender Sehwag had arrived in South Africa with a better understanding of its approach to partake in the inaugural edition of the ICC World Twenty20.
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The moment which required the team his invaluable input had arrived pretty early in the tournament, that, too, during a match against arch-rivals Pakistan. It was the ‘never-experienced-before’ bowl-out event after a tied match, when Sehwag advised his captain MS Dhoni to opt for batters to finish the task rather than the regular bowlers.
After all, despite playing just 19 T20Is in his T20I career, the ‘Nawab of Najafgarh’ was the one who had led the Indian team in their maiden T20I against South Africa before the tournament.
How Virender Sehwag Advised MS Dhoni To Select Batters For Bowl-Out vs Pakistan
During an interaction with Gaurav Kapur in his famous chat show Breakfast with Champions, Sehwag had revealed how the bowl-out practice was on and part of the team’s training sessions ahead of the world event. Most of the teammates, including Sehwag himself, were not really fond of this routine practice of hitting the stumps. However, it was upon the insistence of then bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad and fielding coach Robin Singh that the drill was taken seriously.
“Usme jitne batsmen the, sabse zyada maar rahe the. Main, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma. Toh pehla hi match bowl-out ho gaya! To main MS ke paas gaya, [aur] bola ‘Pehla main marunga’. Mujhe pata tha, main confident tha, main maar dunga. ‘Inko mat dena bowleron ko! Ye bhaag ke aayenge, idhar, udhar phenk denge’. Pehli maine daali, lag gayi. Phir Bhajju [Harbhajan Singh] ki lagi, phir Robin Uthappa ki. Teen ke aage gaye hi nahi. 3-0 se jeet gaye [The batsmen were hitting the most (during bowl-out practice). Myself, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma. So, the first complete match turned out to be a bowl-out! I told MS that I’ll be going first. I said, ‘I’ll do it as I was confident of hitting’. I said ‘Don’t give it to the bowlers’. He asked ‘Why so?’. I said, ‘They’ll mess it up after their run-up. The first one I hit the stumps. Then Bhajju (Harbhajan) and then Robin Uthappa also hit it. We did not go beyond three. Won by 3-0]”.
Remarkably, Pakistan sent out a couple of their fast bowlers for the same, and the quick leg-spin option of Shahid Afridi at No.3. As it turned out, none of them delivered the ball even close to the stumps.
“No One Expected Us To Win World Twenty20 2007″ – Virender Sehwag
Sehwag further went on to remark that no one had expected a young side bereft of majority of their biggest-ever names would go on to clinch the title by defeating this very opposition by 5 runs in the final.
Just the previous year, then India head coach Lalchand Rajput had conceded the same despite it being 15 years since his side had lived their dream.
“Those memories will always be there because we made history. No one was expecting us to win. Even before leaving [for South Africa], everyone was talking about the young team, with a new captain and a new coach. But we were motivated to do something. And by winning the World Cup, we created history,” remarked Rajput during an interaction with ESPNcricinfo in September 2022.
Virender Sehwag T20 Debut
Four years before 2007’s World Twenty20, Sehwag had already made his T20 debut for Leicestershire Foxes during Twenty20 Cup 2003. On his debut match against Yorkshire Carnegie, he was dismissed on a three-ball Duck.
In what turned out to be his first and last stint with the English county club, the flamboyant opening batter played a total of six matches for them and could amass mere 86 runs at an average of 14.33.
However, it was quite an impressive performance from Sehwag – the part-time off-spinner. Across the four innings, he scalped 7 wickets for the Foxes and became their most economical bowler of the season – conceding 70 runs across 14 overs, at a mere 5 runs per over.
