They are two of the most swashbuckling opening batsmen Indian cricket has seen. Virender Sehwag, in some ways, has carried on from where Krishnamachari Srikkanth left off. Both lusty hitters of the cricket ball, they never failed to entertain while out in the middle—playing shots that defied even the most updated cricketing manuals of their times.

Even as Sehwag, who has been finding his touch in the Indian Premier League, prepares to welcome the Chennai Super Kings and its brand ambassador Srikkanth in Delhi, the duo share what goes on in the minds of attacking opening batsmen. And both of them assert that it’s not pre-meditated swipes that have got them success.

“It can’t be pre-meditated at any stage,” says Sehwag. “If I tell myself that I will hit the ball over covers, how can I play a shot if the ball lands on my leg-stump? You have to see the ball and decide very quickly in your mind where to play the shot. The only thing that is pre-meditated sometimes is that I decide to hit every ball that comes my way. The best thing about players like Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya is that they tend to pick the ball very early from the hand.”

Srikkanth agrees. “Our shots come naturally to us, so there’s no need to pre-meditate that. I was an instinctive player, who played particular shots and I backed myself. I had a simple thought in my mind always, that I need to attack to survive the fast bowlers of my era, so all my shots came naturally to me, even from my school days,” says Srikkanth.

... contd.