Tornado with calm in his eye

More recently that job has gone to a Hayden, a Gayle and a Gibbs. And a Sehwag. Neither believes too much in elaborate footwork and patience is a dated virtue to them.

But even here Sehwag stands out for his amazing ability to stay inside the line of the ball and free his shoulders. The text book, a bible to some but a mere thriller to him, would have him move across to cover his stumps, get his body behind the line of the ball and play along the ground in front of the wicket. Instead he stays on leg stump and backs himself to hit through the line of the ball and often, even to carve it with an angled bat. Very few openers in the game, as gifted as him, would create a V between third man and extra cover, ninety degrees away from its original location!

It is a style that requires its owner to possess the manner of a gambler; willing to flirt with danger at all times, not retreat to safety after initial success and to forget the last bad throw of the dice. Dravid couldn’t be one. He would work out probabilities and conclude that the odds weren’t worthwhile. He would get behind the line of the ball!

But it is precisely Sehwag’s ability to forget the previous delivery, even laugh it away, that is his greatest strength. To worry about the previous ball, the earlier innings, is to be the owner of a cluttered mind; thinking not of the ball on the way but the impact another one has had and this one could have.

To Sehwag, every ball seems a fresh offering, a new game; the earlier ball, like the spoken word, gone forever. It is a refreshing philosophy but one only few can practice.

And how arrogantly he dismisses a ball from his presence. Like the cruel zamindars in the movies might a worker or a booking counter clerk in the railways might you or me!

Dravid will study the offering, work out his response and in the act of doing so, give it respect. He is like the musician plucking each note carefully, a scientist doing a titration where each drop matters. Sehwag might wonder at the need for it.

But don’t ever let this apparent lack of studiousness lull you into thinking that, like a three-shift actor, he merely turns up on the sets and asks for his lines. Few people in the game see the ball as early as Sehwag, few make up their mind as quickly, few have a quicker grasp of what the ball is likely to do.

And he isn’t a sparkler either, producing a blaze of light and smoke and getting extinguished. A hundred runs to him doesn’t seem to be a major destination, just another number that someone else is keen to record. And so there is no release of energy when he gets there, no need to take fresh guard, no need to refocus; he gives the impression he is waving at the hundred as he drives by. Hence the big centuries.

Hence, too, the comparison with two other players of our time who too are quite happy to be alongside the ball rather than behind it and who, more often than not, despatch it breathtakingly to the boundary. Brian Lara and Adam Gilchrist, now sadly a little short on runs, are equally thrilling and carry this delightful air of unpredictability.

That might seem a strange word given their batting averages but with either of them you never know if a length ball is going to be blocked or hit past point or flicked past square. That is the essence of live sport, the thrill of not knowing what is coming next. We now have three fabulous stars of that blockbuster.

Ah, and yes, the Vinoo Mankad thing. A part of me says we should be scandalised. Another says, hang on, how many young scientists today know of the phenomenal legacy of Vikram Sarabhai, how many in public life know of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, what does Mehboob Khan mean to our 20something directors? Life moves on. We cannot force those that follow to remember us.