Virender Sehwag makes a big revelation about Shoaib Akhtar’s bowling action
Shoaib Akhtar-Virender Sehwag (Image Source: Twitter)
Former Indian Test opener, Virender Sehwag has spoken up about the bowling action about Shoaib Akhtar. Virender Sehwag was one batter who struck fear in the minds of even the best of his contemporary bowlers due to his aggressive batting approach. On the other hand, an unorthodox bowling action and sheer pace from Shoaib Akhtar were enough to make even the batter nervous while facing him.
Meanwhile, Sehwag has gone on to state that Akhtar used to chuck while bowling. He also stated that the bowler that he used to jerk his elbow.
During a conversation on Home of Heroes, a presentation by Sports 18, Sehwag said that it was difficult to pick Akhtar because of his unusual bowling action.
“Shoaib knows he used to jerk his elbow; he knew he was chucking too. Why would the Governing body of international cricket ban him otherwise? Brett Lee’s hand came down straight, so it was easy to pick the ball. But with Shoaib, you could never guess where the hand and the ball will come from.”-said Sehwag.
When asked about whom did he find the hardest to face, Sehwag named the New Zealand speedster Shane Bond, who is now a bowling coach with the Mumbai franchise in the Indian T20 League. He also stated that he had not feared the pace of Lee or Akhtar and called the Pakistani pacer his ‘boundary bowler’.
“His (Bond’s) deliveries would come swinging into your body, even if he bowled outside the off stump. I never feared facing Brett Lee, but with Shoaib, I could not trust what he could do if I hit him twice to the fence. Maybe a beamer or a toe-crushing yorker,’- Sehwag admitted during the conversation.
While speaking about his very popular aggressive style of batting even in the longest format of the game, Sehwag revealed – “Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly all would score their centuries playing 150-200 balls. If I scored hundreds at the same rate, no one would remember me. I had to score runs faster than them to create my identity.”
Everyone is quite acquainted with Sehwag’s style of bringing up milestones with boundaries. While speaking on the same, he said that milestones never crossed his mind while he was at the crease.
“I always thought that if I stayed till the end of the day, I should score 250 runs, and in that process, I obviously would have to cross 100,150,200 and so on. So, there was no pressure in hitting a ball to or over the fence in the nineties, because the goal was not to stop at 100,”- he added.
