Some excerpts
Leg-side fields didn't matter: Sehwag stepped out, made room and chipped over extra cover, even first ball after a break. Or he reverse-swept past point, from outside leg. In one day he hit 40 fours and seven sixes. The longest he went without a boundary was 12 balls. Violence, power-hitting, streaky shots - none of those, no sir. Just gap-finding of the most delightful kind.
A cricket ground has never looked so prone. To watch Sehwag bat that day was to realise that nine fielders can cover only so much. It is a simple thought that at any given time about 90% of the field is exposed and safe. Yet we need an uncluttered mind like Sehwag's to drive that point home. Batting seemed dangerously easy that day. Batting was pure, infinite joy that day.
One more!
Sehwag ended the day 284 not out, having beaten the attack to pulp, and said he played each ball on its merit and tried only to hit bad balls. "Yeah, right," you and I might say. "Yeah right," his team-mates said. "In the dressing room they told me I was hitting the good balls too, but if you look at it my way I hit only the bad ones," he said the next day. That's what this innings was, an exercise is redefining the "bad ball".
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