Published: Jun 06, 2017, 03:17 PM (IST)
Edited: Jun 06, 2017, 03:18 PM (IST)
Virender Sehwag is a character, a rare character who is complicatedly uncomplicated. He may have applied for the role of head coach for Team India, but if we believe Ravichandran Ashwin, ‘Sehwag hated team meetings’. In the first episode of ‘What The Duck 2’, Ashwin shared a few interesting anecdotes to host Vikram Sathaye about the former Indian batter. One of them happened to be from the ICC World Cup 2011 where Sehwag threatened to pull out of the England game at the last moment. The match was played at Bengaluru, and was India’s second match of the tournament. Sehwag’s 175 had scripted India’s win against Bangladesh at Dhaka.
The then coach Gary Kirsten had scheduled a meeting at 10 am. Prior to the meeting, Sehwag had told Kirsten that he wanted to discuss something at that meeting. However, he did not update the coach on what he was going to talk about. Ashwin recalled Sehwag starting the meeting, “He said ‘We had a great game in Dhaka. Now tell me how many complementary passes is each player promised?’ We are caught off guard. He had found it from somewhere that we were eligible for 6 passes but were getting 3. He said, ‘Come what may we only play the next game when we get the promised number of passes. Before toss we should get our 6 complimentary passes.’ Gary said, ‘I do not need 2, you can take my 2. And Viru [Sehwag] immediately jumped up and said, ‘Gary you are eligible for 4 but getting only 2. So we need to sort this.'” ALSO READ: Sehwag had a very demoralising effect on me, says Ashwin
The meeting on passes went on for 20 minutes. While the world thought that Team India were discussing on all possible strategies ahead of the crucial fixture, the discussion was about passes. From Logistics Manager to manager to BCCI, everyone got involved and explained why less passes were issued but Sehwag remained adamant. Ashwin recalls, “Viru said ‘nothing doing, if you don’t give us 6 I will take this up and I will not play the game.”
However, Sehwag’s demands helped others and Ashwin remains thankful for the same. “Thankfully for Viru the World Cup became a lot easier for players like me because people were asking for passes left, right and centre,” laughed Ashwin.
The 30-year-old off-spinner also mentioned that Kirsten would give short presentations and start the team meetings before passing the baton to skipper MS Dhoni, who would not utter a word. “Indian team meetings usually go for a grand two minutes,” joked Ashwin.
The India-England match aforementioned ended in a thrilling tie. Weeks later, India went on to win the tournament — their second World Cup title.
