At that moment,the excruciating tug of a pulled groin seemed to be worth every unit of pain. After all,Nuwan Kulasekara,writhing on the soft Hambabtota floor in agony,had the white ball,hit by an off-coloured Virender Sehwag,clasped within his palms. It hadnt bounced on the ground,Kulasekara thought,but more importantly,as did the on-field umpires. Sehwag,however,due to a history of such run-ins with the Lankans,called for the third umpires assistance. As replay after replay confirmed nothing,it must have been a nervous few minutes for the Indian opener. Not just because he was on the brink of walking back to the pavilion on 24,another failure,but also because he had looked in the worst of touches. He had been dropped by Dilshan on zero,had nearly run his partner Gambhir out needlessly later and found middling the ball hard. Plus,to add to all that,he hadnt really been himself in the ODI format since the Cup,the 219 not withstanding. Bar the record knock his highest score in the 50-over game post Wankhede was 30. And what made things worse was that Sehwag was blamed with taking part in,if not causing,a rift in the side during the horrifying tour of Australia this year. He desperately needed a big knock early in the new season to find the rhythm of old. The third-umpire let him stay on,and Sehwag did just what was due. He put his head down and went about the job with conviction. Almost. Kulasekera ruled out of series Before Kulasekara had been carried off with a sore groin he has been ruled out of the series,Sehwag was on an audacious streak. For example,off a full length ball from the pacer,Sehwag sat back and swiped at it,slicing the delivery straight back over the bowler's head for four. But following the 'chance',he was a lot more Viruvian as a fullblooded thump off Perera to the fence proved. All in all,Sehwags knock of 96 may have put the 30-year old in the scheme of things,but it was far from Sehwag at his best. His first 30 balls witnessed just 14 runs,and with Kohli taking the pressure off him with his fourth hundred in five innings,Sehwag was happy to play the waiting game. Something he hasnt done very often before. With a record string of half-centuries in the IPL,Sehwag made all the right noises of returning back to form with the bat. Still,if the reports that gushed in from the Australian tour were to be believed,a question mark hung over whether he really intended to put in long yards for Team India with MS Dhoni as captain. Despite missing the hundred here,Sehwag rubbished the past controversies.
