Mumbai: In 1998, when Sachin Tendulkar was at the peak of his career, Sir Donald Bradman had said that he sees a lot of himself in Sachin. Well, Indian cricket fans who have seen Sachin grow from being a youngster to a legend will vouch for the fact that they see a lot of Sachin in Virender Sehwag.

Sri Lanka started the day in a very healthy position looking to go past 400 in the first innings. They would have been confident of their chances in this test match but by the end of the second day, all those chances had vanished and it was just because of one man — Virender Sehwag. Sehwag pulverised the Sri Lankan bowling, ending the day just 16 short of becoming the first man to score three triple centuries in test cricket. Whether he would make that record is still to be seen but during the course of his breathtaking 284 not out, he has already broken a string of records — the third fastest Indian to score 6000 test runs after Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, the most double-centuries by an Indian, the second-highest scorer of 250-plus scores, the most runs by an Indian in a day (breaking his own record) and the second fastest double century in test cricket (breaking his own record). In fact, Sehwag has two out of the three fastest double centuries in test cricket, a feat that alone certifies the dominance of this opener in test cricket.

It was almost as if Sehwag was having a net session. He never looked in any kind of trouble. Things came to a point when you actually started feeling bad for the Sri Lankan bowlers and fielders (Sehwag himself agrees that he feels sorry for the bowlers when he bats in full flow!). The Sri Lankan bowlers had seen Indian spinners getting a lot of assistance from the pitch on Day 1 and when they made 393 in the first innings they had all the reasons to believe that their team is now in the driver’s seat, with two quality spinners in their line-up. But none of the Sri Lanka bowlers would have ever imagined what was in store for them on the second day of this final test match.

The entire Sri Lankan bowling unit could manage four maidens in 79 overs. The plight of their bowling attack could be seen from what Sehwag did to their most experienced and highest wicket taker in the world in both tests and ODIs, Muttiah Muralitharan. Murali was made to look like a rookie bowling to an international cricketer. He was reverse sweeped from outside the leg stump, cut late to a turning off-spinner, hit over mid-off against the spine for huge sixes, hit inside out over extra covers. By the time Murali was introduced into the attack, India had reached 85 in 17 overs and Sehwag had already notched up his 20^th test fifty. He started his spell with a long-on in place which showed how Sehwag had dented the confidence of Sri Lanka already.

By the time Murali started his ninth over, Sehwag had reached 110 off 107 deliveries, Vijay 83 off 111, and India 198 in 36 overs. Murali bowled a doosra, Sehwag took his front foot out of the line, and lofted it over extra cover. Murali dropped his wrists in frustration and went back to mull over figures of 9-0-56-0, which was only about to become worse. He has now bowled 69 consecutive overs without a maiden.

As the day went on, the field started spreading out to all corners of the ground and Sehwag’s scoring kept getting faster and faster. The startling thing about this innings is that Sehwag had scored just 15 runs off the first 31 balls he faced and yet he went on to make the second fastest double hundred in test cricket. Once he opened up, cutting Chanaka Welegedara for a four, and lofting Rangana Herath for six in his first over, the longest he went without a boundary was 12 balls – moving from 166 to 172 – and showing Welegedara, by far the pick of Sri Lankan bowlers, some amount of respect.

Just before tea, Sehwag was pulled back by a minor back problem. He was seen leaning on his bat after every delivery and struggling while taking singles. By tea he had managed to fight through with the injury and reach 151 off 131 balls. But if Sri Lanka were hoping that the back injury would make him slow down then they couldn’t have been more wrong! Straight after tea, on the first ball from Herath, Sehwag made room and played a gorgeous inside out extra cover drive. Despite the injury, he never looked like letting go of the strong position that India was in, never letting go of any scoring opportunity. He ran singles, doubles and scored boundaries without ever showing any signs of tiredness.

Sehwag moved from 184 to 202 in one over of Nuwan Kulasekara as he brought up his sixth double hundred in test cricket, the most for any Indian. The first time that a Sri Lankan bowler managed to induce an edge of Sehwag’s bat was in the 71^st over which was bowled by Angelo Matthews when Sehwag was on 264. In the next over, Muralitharan again found the edge of Sehwag’s bat but it landed safely. In the next, Tillakaratne Dilshan found the edge but Mahela Jayawardene couldn’t latch onto it. It was almost as if the Sri Lankans had stopped expecting any edges or chances coming their way.

Such was the impact of Sehwag’s innings that no one actually noticed the performances of the other opener Murali Vijay and Rahul Dravid. On any other day, Vijay would have been all over the headlines for the innings that he played. He batted elegantly in a classy innings of 87 off 122 balls. The cover drives, straight drives and flicks were as majestic as they could get. Once he was dismissed, Rahul Dravid came in and continued in the same way that he has batted in the first two tests. With two hundreds in two games behind his name, he was effortless in his stroke play and decisive in defense as he quietly moved to 62 not out by stumps.

But when Sehwag bats like the way he did, all you can do is put these performances in the footnote. At the end of Day 2, India were 443 for 1 with Sehwag batting on 284 off 239 balls which included 40 boundaries and 7 mammoth sixes. With India already ahead by 50 runs and 9 wickets in hand, the track expected to spin on the fourth and fifth days, this series looks very much like 2-0 in favour of the hosts.

Brief Scores:

India 443 for 1 (Sehwag 284*, Vijay 87, Dravid 62*) lead Sri Lanka 393 (Dilshan 109, Mathews 99, Paranavitana 53, Harbhajan 4-112) by 50 runs

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