Injured Sehwag out of T20 world cup

Posted by Aniket in News on 04 21st, 2010 | one response

Sehwag Team India will miss services of dashing opener Virender Sehwag in upcoming T20 world cup. Sehwag has picked up a shoulder injury which ruled him out of T20 world cup to be held in West Indies from 30^th April . Tamil Nadu opener and Chennai Super Kings batsman Murali Vijay takes his position in 15-man squad and in the absence of Sehwag, Gambhir will be Dhoni’s deputy, declared the BCCI statement.

However BCCI statement did not mention when Sehwag sustained the injury, probably he picked an injury in Delhi’s last game against Hyderabad in IPL. In IPL-2010 Sehwag scored 356 runs in 14 matches at an average of 25.42 with a strike rate of 25.42 which includes 3 half centuries.

Certainly Sehwag’s injury has dented India’s hopes at T20 World Cup but you can not blame IPL for this. Injury can happen to player even during practice sessions and as they say match practice is the best practice and in fact IPL provided that much needed match practice before an important event. Last year also Sehwag missed T20 world cup and in that tournament Team India was eliminated without winning a game in the second round. Let’s hope history does not repeat.

Sehwag’s replacement Murali Vijay is in good form. He has been India’s back-up opener for Tests and ODIs for some time now and in this year’s IPL he showed that he can be handy player in T20 also. He scored 417 runs in 13 matches at an average of 37.9 with a strike rate of 158.55 – highest among batsmen scoring 400+ runs in IPL-3. But it was his knock against Rajasthan that caught attention of cricketing world.

Manish Pandey and Uthappa are other two players who have performed well in this year’s IPL but if we consider current form and combination of team I think Vijay is the perfect replacement for Sehwag. If Chikka – National Selector Srikkant’s word’s are to be believed; Sehwag expressed desire to vacate top slot to accommodate Vijay and is ready to bat at number 3. So that should be more than enough reason for selectors to pick Vijay ahead of others. Now it’s upto Vijay to make most of this opportunity.