It’s business as usual for Virender Sehwag

To contain Virender Sehwag is a herculean task — be it during a match or the nets. After missing the training sessions for the last two days, the swashbuckling opener was back in the nets on Thursday and looked to be in perfect shape to take on England.
Sehwag has been missing the training sessions since the team arrived here from Dhaka on Sunday because of a swollen knee.

However, looking at the form Sehwag was in, it was difficult to believe that he was the same man who had trouble walking inside the hotel lobby. The Nawab of Najafgarh was the first one to pad up and get going at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Sehwag, who tormented the Bangladesh attack with a swift 140-ball 175, was at his destructive best as he hit the spinners out of the ground on numerous occasions. After starting off cautiously, Sehwag came to his own self, giving clear indications of what to expect from him in the matches to come.

Seeing him hit even the good balls over the fence, Harbhajan Singh even bowled a seam-up short-pitched delivery, but even the Turbanator was stunned when Sehwag pulled that for a six over square leg.

The Delhi batsman looked like a man on a mission, who wanted to catch up on the training he missed in the last couple of days. After the net session at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, he headed to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) ground, where he spent close to an hour. Later, he had a long session with coach Gary Kirsten, who threw the ball at him in one of the nets.

All the 15 players, including seamer Ashish Nehra, turned up for training on Thursday. Nehra spent most of his time with the physio Nitin Patel before bowling at the fag end of the session. Nehra bowled with a rather short run-up. The team had a long fielding session at the Stadium.