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Wrists of fury Wisden CricInfo staff - November 12, 2002
Virender Sehwag's cavalier 114 (off just 82 balls) was notable for his use of the wrist. The West Indian bowlers zoomed in on the corridor outside off stump, pitching there 70 balls out of 82, but Sehwag's response was to turn the wrist and pick up as many as 70 of his runs on the onside. The West Indian bowlers made his task easier by pitching on a good length, or just short of it, for 68 of those deliveries. Not that Sehwag was strokeless on the offside. When the width offered proved too tempting, he picked up 23 runs from cuts and steers just behind square. But he was at his best in the arc between fine-leg and midwicket, 59 runs coming from improvised strokes off the pads. In sharp contrast to Ramnaresh Sarwan, who picked up a large proportion of his runs playing straight down the ground earlier in the day, Sehwag's straight-drive was largely inactive, only 12 runs coming from full frontal views of the sponsor's label. Sehwag didn't discriminate between pace and spin either. Mervyn Dillon went for 23 from 18 balls, after Sehwag took some time initially to uncork the vintage stuff. The spinners got no such grace period though, Chris Gayle going for 18 in an over and Mahendra Nagamootoo going for 30 runs from 20 balls. Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.
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