Sitting on the stairs beneath the dressing room, waiting for his turn to speak, Team India skipper Rahul Dravid knew that though Bermuda was done, the real challenge lay ahead. Against Sri Lanka, on Friday.No wonder then, that more than the record 257-run win, and that little blip in the end when Bermuda scrambled from 110/8 to 156, Dravid preferred to look back with some satisfaction on that one, real ‘positive’ for India — Virender Sehwag.Especially because the skipper has stuck his neck out on Sehwag, right from the day before the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town in January, when he squeezed in the opener as a middle-order bat, defying the national selectors, forcing coach Greg Chappell to nod his head. And again, when the World Cup blueprint was being finalised in February.What is it that Dravid sees in Sehwag, despite all those flops, despite the outspoken opener telling this paper last year that Sourav Ganguly was the best captain he had ever played under?Over to Dravid, for his reply, and more:Backing Sehwag: It’s not about me• Viru’s a very good player, and I am happy that he’s a part of my team and a key member. And he’s got into form when we needed him, before a very critical match for us. It’s not about me, it’s really about him. I think after coming back from South Africa, the effort that Viru has put in, not only just in the nets but on his fitness, the way he has approached it has been fantastic for me to watch. I know when Viru’s really working hard on his physical fitness and really putting it in at the nets, I generally know that he is just a few knocks away from a good one and a big one. Whenever he’s been in a purple patch, there are certain things that you see in Viru, and that has been quite evident to me all along. But to be honest, we expect a lot more from him, he’s not been picked to score one hundred for us.Bermuda good, could have been better • We achieved what we wanted to do. We set ourselves a margin if we had to bat first, a margin close to what Sri Lanka achieved against them (Bermuda). But they had one professional batsman in the side (David Hemp, who topscored with 76, plays for Glamorgan) and he played well. He took his chances a little bit in the end, and it came off. That probably was a stumbling block for us to wrap them up a bit earlier. However, the margin of victory is satisfying and gets us into the picture a little bit.Net run rate, but first Sri Lanka• The net run rate is not in our control, the other games are not in our control. What’s in our control is we have got to win the next game, try and win it as well as possible. Just focus on that. We will need a few other things to fall into place too. But I believe that if we can win the next game, we will put ourselves in a very good position. The real challenge is ahead, all the boys know what they have to do. Now we will practice well over the next two days, and get prepared as well as we can for the game (against Sri Lanka). We need to come up with a good performance.
