India’s dashing batsman Virender Sehwag, who missed out from getting a place in the 30 men Indian probables for the 2015 World Cup has revealed so much on his game, retirements and how he feels on missing the team. Here are the excerpts of an exclusive interview of Virender Sehwag:
On how is he playing his game:
“Wow. Thanks for reminding me that I didn’t play for India for almost two years. I’m still playing cricket, enjoying, not scoring runs but I am happy. As a child, i wanted to play the game of cricket and am still playing cricket for Delhi Ranji team, Kings XI Punjab. I am trying to play well for my teams. Sometimes, you win them matches and sometimes you won’t.”
On asked whether he might never play for India again after being omitted from the 2015 World Cup probables:
“Whose loss it is? I am happy now. Cricketers are worried about their hundreds, worried about their milestones, worried about the 10, 000 runs, 5, 000 runs in Test matches. I am not like that. I have played 100 Test matches, scored over 8000 runs and still playing the game of cricket. That’s what I want.Everyone dream to play for my country. I made it a reality and achieved it. Then one of my fellow cricketer told me that Playing for India is easy, but to stay there for 10-15 years is difficult. So I changed my dream and achieved my dream, achieved my goal of playing 100 Test matches for my country. So there is nothing to achieve. I Just enjoy my game.”
On asked whether he himself felt for not performing as he used to do:
“My approach is same. I can’t able to give the kind of performances I used to but my approach is same. If you look at my domestic performances, if I score runs, I will score quickly and if I don’t, I will get out quickly (laughs). I never tried to change my style. I was keep telling myself that I need time. It is very difficult to score runs on a Delhi green wicket. It happens, when you are old, you are experienced, but you can’t score with your experience and it is impossible every time that you go out there and come out with a hundred”
On his retirement plans:
“This thought never came to mind. I still think I can play crickets for 2-3 years more, be it Delhi or IPL or Indian team. I will play cricket for a couple of years and decide when I want to retire. I will retire through Twitter rather than inviting the whole media (laughs). If I retire today or after two years, does it make any difference? Not in my life. Does it make a difference if I score 8000 or 10,000 runs in Test cricket? Not in anybody’s life. Even if I make 10,000 runs, who will be happy? Only me, maybe, because people don’t care about 8000 or 10,000 or 15,000 runs. It is about individual satisfaction.”
On why he wants to come back as a middle order batsman:
“It doesn’t matter for me where I bat as far as am scoring runs be it no. 4 or no. 5 or no. 2. I was a middle order batsman. Team management asked me to open the innings, I did. Again they asked me to play in the middle order, I did.”
On how much he miss the Indian team and the emotion that goes through him when he watches the team:
“I miss the dressing room. But, still I pray and hope the team wins whatever match they are playing in. I fight with my sons when they say, ‘Dad you are not playing, so the Indian team should not win’. I used to tell them that the priority is that the country should win, it doesn’t matter who is playing. I miss the dressing room but at least somebody else is playing and contributing to the team, winning matches. I am happy about that.”
On the current Indian team and chances of them doing well in Australia after a poor series in England:
“We have a good bunch of players. We need to give them time. They are touring to Australia for the first time. When we toured Australia, England and South Africa for the first time, we struggled. I was lucky to score a hundred in each of these countries in my first tour. Give this team some time and they will start performing. It’s not like If you don’t perform you are dropped in your initial stages. There are players who performed poorly in his first 15 innings but went on to play 100 Test matches.”
Courtesy: ESPNcricinfo