Fearless, Entertaining & Influential, Virender Sehwag Was Always Box Office

Today, in 1978, Nawab of Najafgarh Virender Sehwag was born, and so was the abundance of entertainment, thrill, bravado, and excitement.

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To put it in perspective as to how impactful player Sehwag was, we have to ignore the numbers and focus on the pleasure his batting provided. He scored truckloads of runs, but it was his style of play that fascinated me.

When former Indian opener used to walk into bat, the whole mood around the stadium used to change - the storm was always brewing. The swashbuckling batsman used to walk in, to dominate and decimate bowlers. There was no other way.

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When Sehwag was at the crease, there were no nerves. He used to look steady and cool as a cucumber. The character he was, you always expected the oozing positive energy all around. He was so chilled at the wicket that he used to get into the act of singing at times.

The audacity of the man knew no bounds, but it was only something he could have pulled off.

There was no doubt about his ability with the bat. He was a special player who could change the complexion of the game. He would just storm you over in the first ten overs and the rest of the time you would be looking at shadows. But above all he was a entertainer, and he had some real wit.

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On many occasions Sehwag showed his witty self, it was another arsenal up his sleeve that was as devastating as his batting. In 2004, former Australian captain Michael Clarke was on the receiving end of Sehwag's crafty humour after he sledged Sachin Tendulkar.

Sehwag went up to Clarke during the 2004 Test in Hyderabad when Clarke was sledging Tendulkar and to put an end to it he asked Clarke a simple question, "Your teammates call you Pup, right?", to which Clarke replied, ¡°Ya mate¡±. Sehwag then added, ¡°Which breed?¡±

How can you not love the man. He won it with the bat and his wit. There was nothing Virender Sehwag coudn't do.

He even made Test cricket interesting at a time when we were not into it, with his dashing displays at the top.

I honestly found Tests boring, not because the cricket went at a slow pace and it was about perseverance, but because a millennial kid like me preferred smash and grab, attack and counterattack, and taking the game by the scruff of the neck by the get go.

Virender Sehwag provided that millennial box office entertainment and always kept the excitement intact. The man wanted to have fun, and the milestones were never on the agenda. You could be forgiven for taking time to get your eye in, but radical Sehwag was alien to that concept.

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Play and a miss. That has been hammered to the fence. Absolutely rockets to the boundary. He has hit that with utter disdain. Stand and deliver. If it was a commentary script, you knew Sehwag was at the crease.

In his 14 year career, Sehwag gave us the joy of attacking cricket, and the fun that came along with that was priceless. Much before T20 came into being, Sehwag provided the blitz. He cracked the code prior to format taking over and giving the gripping fever.

The man always had a smile on, no matter the situation - coming in, hitting it to the fence, or getting dismissed, the jolly side never faded.

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He wasn't one with great footwork and technique, but he compensated it with terrific hand-eye coordination. 'If it's in the arc, it goes out of the park' theory is all Sehwag.

The Nawab of Najafgarh was a special player, and one who always had me glued to the screen even if he was at the non strikers end. That was the power of the man.

We have seen many special players, but none so unique as Virender Sehwag.