This is a special knock from Sehwag and I hope that it silences his critics: Coach

Virender Sehwag’s childhood coach AN Sharma admitted that he used to get "hurt" by the critical remarks about his favourite student, says a report in The Times of India.


"This is a special knock and I hope that it silences all those who were sceptical about Viru's ability to play big knocks at the international stage. This is a fitting answer to all those barbs aimed at him,” he said.


Sharma who guided Sehwag in his early days said, “Viru is a man of different quality. I would admit that if someone writes all those things about my favourite student, I would certainly get hurt but he remained unfazed and would tell me not to bother about all these things.”


On Sehwag scoring a hundred after two years he said, “Name one player who did well against England and Australia consistently during those eight Test matches that we lost? Just because he (Sehwag) is an attacking batsman, the focus is more on his failures."


On Sehwag’s technical issues, Sharma said, “"When someone plays 99 Tests, there must be something right about him. When I spoke before he left for Mumbai (camp), I just told him to try and bat for as long as possible because no bowler will then be able to stop him from playing his strokes."


Meanwhile, TOI in another report says that Sharma is not surprised that Sehwag dominated the English attack on a track that he referred to as "not of Test standard".


"To be honest, the pitch isn't ideal for Test cricket. There was absolutely nothing in it for the England seamers and Viru seldom lets these opportunities go. He bossed the attack and the only delivery that did something was the one that got him after he had already scored 117 at run a ball. Now the spinners would be unplayable in the coming days," Sharma said.

TOP PICKS