‘A chance for youngsters’
Captiancy is not a burden for me, says stand-in skipper Sehwag
The absence of banned MS Dhoni and injured Yuvraj Singh may have come as a big setback for the team, but stand-in skipper Virender Sehwag termed it as an opportunity for the youngsters to stake their claim.
“When the series is going on and if these things happen, there is not much you can do about it. Definitely we will miss their services but we have to look at our other options. The youngsters are getting an opportunity to play for their country and if they do well and get a mark it’s good for the team as well. The bench strength will get stronger and stronger. The World Cup is coming up and if players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma get opportunities to play and get runs, our bench strength will improve,” he said while addressing the media here on Wednesday.
The opener said the captaincy was not an extra burden on him and that his batting will not be affected by it. In the first game he led, Sehwag made clever bowling changes, introduced himself to get the crucial wicket of Kumar Sangakkara and then contributed a quick-fire 44 during India’s successful chase. “I am enjoying my captaincy very much. Captaincy is not at all putting pressure on me. Whether I am the captain or not, my role is to get runs and give suggestions. Now that I am the captain, I look for my team-mates to give me inputs and my job is to try and implement them,” he said.
On the cusp of winning the series, Sehwag said India would do everything in their hands to not to surrender the advantage when he was reminded of hosts’ loss to Australia after taking a 2-1 lead last month. “Yes, Australia won the series after we took a lead. But we are not going to give up our games so easily. We will fight till the end. The loss to Australia isn’t at all at the back of our minds,” he remarked.
It was the spinners, especially Ravindra Jadeja, who did the job for India in the third match and with the pitch here expected to stay low Sehwag backed his slow bowlers to do the job once again. “Jadeja and Harbhajan did well in the last match and we hope they do the same again here tomorrow. But we also have to get Tillakaratne Dilshan early. It is difficult to stop him, so it is better to try and get him out. If we can get his wicket our spinners can put pressure on the Sri Lankan middle-order,” he reasoned.
