Though India's One Day International (ODI) captain, Virender Sehwag, had been badly dropped by West Indies captain, Darren Sammy when he had scored "only" 170 and had produced a very rare "dive" to keep his wicket, when he was on only 78, Sehwag was already in that zone of certainty. Nothing could have gone wrong! "If you could keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowances for their doubting too, etc, etc. Yours is the earth, and everything that's in it and which is more, you'll be a man, my son!" No, this is not "Scarface – The world is yours", that quasi-sequel video game of the excellent original Scarface, starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana, with motto, "The world is yours!" This is from the No 8 ranked poem of all time, "If", by Rudyard Kipling, referring, pertinently, to India's opening batsman extraordinaire, Virender Sehwag! Aged 33, 240 ODI's, 8025 runs, avg 35.66, "Viru" had long been one of India's main men, also taking into consideration his 92 Tests, 7980 runs, avg 52.15. What a great player! That the earth and everything in it, at least everything in India, has not been his has been due to the fact that Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, nearer to being a cricketing god than earthling, also plays for India.
Sehwag did keep his head, even as he was being lampooned for his failings in the previous three ODI's against West Indies. Scores of 38, 0, 20, 26, 0, were Virender's last five ODI innings, the last three against West Indies, before that titillating 219 last Thursday, only the second man to achieve such ODI heights! Tendulkar has 18,111 runs, avg 45.16, 453 ODI (whoa!), and 15,183 runs, avg 56.02, 184 Tests (papa!). It is ironic that the only other person to make an ODI double century, before "Viru", was indeed Tendulkar; 200 not out versus South Africa at Gwalior, also in the state of Madhya Pradesh, certainly a good run-getting zone. Comparisons will certainly continue. Tendulkar made an unbeaten 200 in his 442nd ODI; 147 deliveries, 25 four's, three sixes; against South Africa's Dale Stein, Wayne Parnell, Rolf van der Merwe, Charl Langeveldt, JP Duminy and Jacques Kallis, an extremely good bowling attack indeed! "Viru's" 200 (201 not out) came in 140 deliveries, 23 fours, six sixes; the eventual 219, in only his 240th ODI, 149 deliveries, 25 fours, seven sixes.
West Indies bowlers in the fourth ODI were Kemar Roach, Ravi Rampaul, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Darren Sammy, Kieron Pollard and Marlon Samuels, certainly not as accomplished as South Africa's. It really does not matter much at all! Viru was in that special place! Basketballers, tennis players, Formula 1 drivers, American Grid Iron players, marathon runners, talk much about "being in the zone", that place where no-one or nothing can interrupt the all encompassing self. What exactly is this "zone", this phenomenon that so encapsulates professionals? It is not only recognised by highly honed sportsmen and sportswomen. Guys and girls of Wall Street, New York, or "The City", London, also suggest that "you must be in the zone to make real money". Certainly they were not suggesting that you should be on some street or in a building? Not even close! It is much more than that. "The zone" is more like a vacuum, a space where only one of anything exists! "Zone" should not be confused with "synchronicity", which suggests several things happening, favourably or unfavourably, simultaneously. Sehwag put his mind and body in the same place at once! Uncanny! I have seen so many examples of the zone.
In 1977, in the third Test versus Pakistan in Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana-my third Test overall and only Test in Guyana -was my first experience of that zone. I was not in it but did suffer considerably because of it.
Pakistan's opener, Majid Khan, had feared reasonably in two previous Tests; 88, 28, 47, 54; four innings before Georgetown. We had a very close draw in Barbados, West Indies winning at Port of Spain, courtesy of yours truly's 8-29, and Roy Fredericks' 120. My spell was more synchronicity than zone! Somehow though that galvanised Khan into his own place. Even the first innings of the third Test, was normal, Khan making only 23. Then he switched on or went into that zone. Led by 254 on first innings, Pakistan then made 540, Khan playing one of the most majestic innings ever seen, 167, glorious, if you were a spectator or supporter, agonising, if, like me, you were on the field! Test No 3 was eventually drawn, West Indies getting 154-1, second innings, set 287 to win. Andy Roberts, myself, Joel Garner, Bernard Julien, Viv Richards and late Roy Fredericks, the bowlers used, would never have forgotten that "zone" attack by Khan in Guyana. Nothing that we bowled missed the middle of the bat. Indeed, I cannot remember anything even missing the bat. Khan had put us in his Zone! In 1979, the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup Final, which West Indies won by 92 runs, we saw, from the dressing room, another zone attack. Sent to bat first, we were tottering at 99-4, when Collis King joined Viv Richards at the crease. When King left, at 238-5, the collective drew breath for the first time in two hours.
King had "zoned" us all, with 86-77 balls, ten fours, three sixes, in that partnership of 139, making even Viv, who eventually made 138 no, 'Man of the Match' award, look ordinary. King was surely robbed then!
Australia versus West Indies, the Melbourne Cricket Club at MCG in 1979, was where I had my maiden "zone"!
We had drawn Test No 1 in Brisbane but needed to win Test No 2 to show how good we were. There were 85,000-plus people at the "Bull Ring", just after Christmas. I did not see or hear any one of them at all. We won by ten wickets, my contributions 3-27 and 3-61. Holding had match figures of 6-101, Roberts 3-103, and Garner, 5-89, both respective match figures. Those were the only West Indies bowlers used in that Test. All of us were in that special real place; "the zone!" Oh, what a feeling! In the first Test, Australia versus West Indies, Boxing Day 1982, again at MCG, gave another zone, from Kim Hughes. Same bowling attack but Hughes pummeled us for 100 not out, from a total of only 198. It was one of the most adventurous and correct innings played against "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"! Brian Lara's 153 against Australia to win Test No 3 in 1999 at Kensington Oval, was so focused that he zoned us. Batting at number five; 78-3; Lara made an unbeaten153 from 233 that West Indies eventually added to win that match. Way after that epic innings, Lara was still struggling to get back down with us at the press conference! Sehwag, like marathon runners, who win races and still keep running not aware that they had not only won but that the races had indeed been completed, was in that one place, brimming with full focus on self – the zone!
