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Cricket Players'Everyone said I need to improve my footwork but no one told me how': Virender Sehwag names 3 cricketers who helped him
Virender Sehwag said it was not as if he did not want to improve his foot movement. The former right-hander said everybody pointed out his lack of footwork but no one told him how to correct it.
Virender Sehwag was all about hand-eye coordination. With minimum feet movement, Sehwag achieved the maximum results. For a batsman who averaged more than 50 for the major part of his Test career, Sehwag was highly unconventional. His feet hardly moved even against the new ball and yet he was one of the fiercest batsmen of his era.
Speaking in the launch of the Cricuru app, Sehwag said it was not as if he did not want to improve his foot movement. The former right-hander said everybody pointed out his lack of footwork but no one told him how to correct it.
"Everyone said I need to improve my foot movement but nobody had the answers how,” said Sehwag who is the only Indian to score two triple centuries in Test cricket.
The correct advice however came from not one but three former India cricketers, Sehwag said.
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He explained how the correct advice from Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, and Krishnamachari Srikkanth helped him improve his game.
“But by the advice of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, and Krishnamachari Srikkanth to stand on middle-off instead of leg stump helped me a lot, " Sehwag added.
Sehwag also added how learned to play the straight drive from watching Sachin Tendulkar bat in the 1992 World Cup.
"Cricket is played on the ground but a lot can be learned. If I give my own example, I started watching cricket from the 1992 World Cup and at that time used to watch (Sachin) Tendulkar and copy him. "...How he plays the straight drives, how he plays the back-foot punch... In 1992, if I could watch TV and learn a bit, why not," said Sehwag, who is also the founder of Cricuru app.
Speaking about the advantages of current technology and the app he launched with former India cricketer Sanjay Bangar, Sehwag said cricketers can now correct faults in their technique.
"But in today's time if you have videos of these cricketers whom you admire -- Ab De Villiers, Brian Lara, Chris Gayle or Virender Sehwag, or other players, then their videos are available. In our time, such videos were not available. "If in my time such facilities were there like I could speak to someone online or subscribe the videos with ease, then I would have done that and could have learned better and early and could have played for India early.
"The mental aspect is important and we have to launch (the app) with the mental aspect and later on we can go with cricket skills. But When I spoke with Sanjay (Bangar) and (then) Sanjay told me that the mental aspect is important but skill is also important. "Because he spent so much time with the Indian cricket team as a batting coach and he told me that a lot of even international cricketers are finding difficulty (finding it difficult) to find their mistakes and correct them," said Sehwag.
