Colombo: The doubts regarding Virender Sehwag’s thumb injury were put to rest as the swashbuckling opener batted for about half-an-hour in the nets on Wednesday ahead of India’s Super Eights encounter in the World T20 against Australia on Friday.
Sehwag, who didn’t bat at the nets on Tuesday, was intent personified as he first entered the spinners’ net and lofted Piyush Chawla repeatedly over long-off. There weren’t any signs of discomfort during his 25-minute stint at the nets.
For the Indian team, most of the batsmen were tested against short-pitched deliveries by their bowlers as well as by the net bowlers.
Right from Sehwag, Gambhir to Raina everyone was seen perfecting the horizontal bat shots.
“The Indian coach was telling us to hit the deck consistently and try to get it up at the ribs. At times, we were told to bowl yorkers,” Anjana, one of the net bowlers, said.
With Sehwag’s comeback, there are clear indications that India will go back to their seven-batsman, four-bowlers theory and either Lakshmipathy Balaji or Zaheer Khan will get the axe as Ravichandran Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan are automatic choices for this match.
Meanwhile, Michael Hussey, who has enormous respect for Sehwag, insisted that the Indian can “never be out of form”, but at the same time hoped that Virat Kohli has a bad day in office when Australia face India.
“I would never say that Virender Sehwag is out of form.
“He can miss out a couple of times but we all know that every time he misses out he is closer to the next big one,” Hussey told mediapersons at the end of Australia’s practice session.
On Kohli’s purple patch, Hussey said, “Every batsman tends to miss out [at] some stage and I hope that he is going to miss out (against us).” (PTI)