The great Sehwag slide

TRINIDAD: To paraphrase a song from The Sound of Music, ‘How do you solve a problem like Sehwag?’

The hard numbers are known to almost everyone but still to reiterate Sehwag’s plight, here’s a look at his numbers over the last few months. In the last 10 matches, the Indian opener has scored only 190 runs at 21.11.

With him at the top of the order, the Indian team is almost mentally preparing itself to lose a wicket early. Robin Uthappa’s presence at number three is mainly to try and offset the early loss.

Sehwag’s problems at the top of the order are mainly coming against the pacemen but instead of allowing him to find himself against spinners, where he is much more confident, Dravid insists on throwing him into the frying pan. There is a thin line between going with your gut instinct and foolhardiness and right now, Dravid is treading that line. How much longer with Sehwag be persisted with?

While the blame of the defeat doesn’t lie with Sehwag entirely, it is a fact that his presence at the top of the order is a ‘no go’. The last time the opener scored a century was in 2005, the last time he scored a fifty was in 2006. This is 2007 and surely by ‘a good start,’ Dravid doesn’t mean a quick 20-30 runs. Promote Harbhajan Singh up the order and even he will get you that once in ten matches which is precisely what Sehwag is doing right now.

So is there a solution to the problem? Surely. But will Dravid go with it?

While Bangladesh’s Mahsrafe Mortaza did extremely well in claiming 4 wickets against India on Saturday, the cream of the Indian batting — Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni — succumbed to the left-arm spinners.

A far cry from the days when the Indian batsmen were acknowledged as the best players of spin in the world.

It’s a fact that would have doubtless caught the eyes of all the other nations. India needs to switch the batting order. Let Uthappa open, move Sehwag down the order, get a dynamic in-form batsman like Yuvraj Singh, who is currently batting four-down, up the order. Yuvraj played very well against Bangladesh but most of his shots against spinners were played from within the crease. He chose to sweep, with good effect, rather than step out of the crease and upset the line and length of the spinners. Sehwag can do that, with telling effort.

The last thing Dravid needs to with Sehwag is sit down with him and talk. Pass the ultimatum, tell him that if he can’t produce the goods, he can say goodbye to international cricket for a while. Sehwag may have all the talent in the world, but if he can’t produce the runs then it all comes to naught.