Despite making optimum use of the horizontal bat while at the crease — the square drive, upper cut, the pull and the calculated slog towards mid-wicket are all shots he regularly plays — Team India vice-captain and opener Virender Sehwag has a rather straight-forward approach while facing questions. In an interview with The Indian Express, he talks about the successful tour of New Zealand, a forced conversion, mini-competitions with Gautam Gambhir and the IPL. Excerpts:

•Given the hype ahead of the New Zealand tour, the 41-year jinx was broken rather easily...

• Actually, it was tough. Irrespective of what the results suggest, it wasn’t a cakewalk. At first, we thought it would be easy, but we lost both T20 games. We came together and told ourselves that we need to really put everything into this tour and get the right results. We all put out best efforts into it and in the process, perhaps we made it look simple.

•After so much success at the top of the order, do you still feel you are an opener by chance?

• You can’t change that fact, can you? I was a middle-order batsman who was asked to open and luckily for me, things went really well. In fact, till date, as an opener I am just doing a job given to me by the team management. Given a choice, I would happily slide down and play in the middle-order because that’s where I belong. But right now, I have a job entrusted to me and I love the responsibility, so no regrets at all.

... contd.