Experiment for Sehwag, in hot seat

Vice-captain Sehwag’s role in the Indian thinktank hasn’t come under scrutiny. While skipper Dravid and coach Greg Chappell have been preparing the blueprint with Sachin Tendulkar playing mentor, Sehwag’s visible inputs on the field have been just suggesting a few minor fielding adjustments. But ask the players of the dressing room atmosphere, and they talk about Sehwag’s role. JP Yadav, who played under Sehwag at the Motera, talks about him being an ‘‘aggressive captain like his batting style and the one member in the team who happens to be positive all the time.’’

Even Sehwag has said that before the series started each member of the team has been given a role. His role it seems was what JP had said. Batting inputs to juniors, field adjustments and spreading the positive vibes in the dressing room. Ask Chappell about Sehwag, the captain, he smiles and says: ‘‘He did a fine job considering that he was asked to lead at short notice, but he told me after the game how exhaustive it had been for him.’’

It certainly must have been, as Sehwag had been all over the ground. With no seniors around, leading an inexperienced attack needs a lot of walk and a lot of talk. He was stationed at mid-off and constantly interacted with the bowlers besides shouting field position instruction to everybody on the field.

Aggressive he certainly was on field. Wanting to buy wickets he bowled his best bowler of the day, Murali Kartik, at a stretch and even when Dilshan and Arnold were scoring freely he had his men in the circle. Due to the lack of resources he may have lost the match but he wouldn’t face that problem tomorrow.

Though Dravid is out Sehwag will have old hand Kaif as the replacement and with S. Sreesanth and VRV Singh not included he will have experienced pace and spin spearheads Pathan and Harbhajan to deliver. Then there will always be Tendulkar with tips in times of crisis. But will Team India be different on field as compared to the unit that won the series 4-0 under Dravid? Chappell said that there will certainly be subtle changes in certain match situations, but at the same time added that the basics will remain the same.

There might be changes at the top of the order. With Gautam Gambhir scoring a ton at the Motera, chances are that he will walk out with Tendulkar at the start of the innings. This will mean that along with Sehwag’s elevation from vice-captain to captain he might move down in the batting order.