Ode to the Nawab of Najafgarh

“I also want to thank everyone for all the cricketing advice given to me over the years and I apologize for not accepting most of it! I had a reason for not following it; I did it my way!” ended an emotional Virender Sehwag’s post announcing his retirement on his 37th birthday.

Well, we are all glad that he did so (not following the advice), otherwise he wouldn’t have been Sehwag at all. It also brought out the West Indian Wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin to tweet “One of the best double hundred in ODI, I had the best seat in the house.”

April 1st 1999, Sehwag came out to bat for his country for the first time. He probably was nervous playing the deadly Shoaib Akhtar and eventually succumbed to a gem of an incoming delivery from the Rawalpindi express. But behind that swipe on the leg side which he had missed, he had an intent. The intent was clear. Not many would’ve predicted that it will be that killer intent of his which would shape the destiny of Indian cricket forever.“No matter how good and experienced you are, Virender Sehwag can kill your attitude ” Brett Lee had said once.

On this day, 16 years later, Sehwag bows out. International cricket is a level playing field, but the Indians almost had an edge. They had him. The Nawab of Najafgarh. The casualities-Waqar , Mcgrath, Wasim, Shoaib, Steyn, Swann,Lee Johnson,…the list goes on.

He cannot….

How can he leave?..he absolutely cannot. He indeed resides in the heart of every Indian Cricket fan. Sehwag can only walk away from cricket. He cannot leave us- the fans. He defied the conventional way. He excited us all. Test matches had not been as interesting as this. Two triple hundreds is not the deal. The fastest triple hundred is. Sehwag took us all along on that exhilarating ride of his illustrious career and now he says that he should leave? He cannot…..

Thank You Sehwag.

Sourav Ganguly made some decisions in his life. None better than promoting Sehwag to open the batting. What followed after was magic,thrill and eventual grumpiness as Sehwag walked back to the pavillion for the day. This never ending cycle only made the fans intoxicated in his(Sehwag’s) batting. Now as it becomes a masterpiece in the gallery of Indian cricketing history, we need to take a step back and recollect that thrill once again and then you know it. Its never really gone.

Thank You Sehwag. Not only for your cricketing genius but for giving us that happiness. No matter what the situation in our lives might be, we know we have a memory to cherish, the treasure of your scintillating career.