"Sunil Gavaskar won't make an effort to talk to Sehwag, you have to request him" - Virender Sehwag's hard-hitting statement on young Indian cricketers
Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag feels that if young Indian cricketers like Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill want to take advice from him, they need to make an effort themselves.
Shaw struggled for the Delhi Capitals (DC) in the first half of the IPL 2023 season, scoring just 47 runs in six games which led to him being dropped from the team. Sehwag recently shed light on how he had an ad shoot with Shaw and Gill but neither asked him anything about cricket.
Speaking to Cricbuzz, Virender Sehwag also shared an instance from back in 2003/04 when he requested the then Indian head coach John Wright to arrange a meeting with the great Sunil Gavaskar, as he wanted some batting advice.
"He (Prithvi Shaw) did an ad shoot with me," Sehwag said. "Shubman Gill was also there. None of them talked about cricket for once. We were there for 6 hours. If you want to talk to someone then you have to approach them."
"When I was new to the team, I wanted to talk to Sunny bhai (Gavaskar), so I said to John Wright that 'I'm still a new player, I don't know whether Sunny Bhai will meet me or not', but you should organise that meeting. So Wright organised a dinner in 2003-04 for me and I also said that my (opening) partner Aakash Chopra will also come so that we can talk about batting," he continued.
"So he came and had dinner with us. Sunil Gavaskar won't make an effort to talk to Sehwag or Chopra. You have to request him," Sehwag added.
Virender Sehwag on the need for Prithvi Shaw to be mentally tough
Virender Sehwag claimed that had Prithvi Shaw made a request to meet him for advice, he would have definitely had a conversation. Sehwag also spoke about the importance of being mentally tough, no matter how talented the cricketer may be.
“So one has to make a request for that," Sehwag said. "If Shaw handed such a request so I'm sure someone would have...he is playing for Delhi, so if you wanted to talk, he should have handed a request to the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of DC. In cricket, no matter how much talented you are. If you are not mentally up, if you are not fit mentally or don't tune your mind. Then nothing can be done."
Prithvi Shaw had a good comeback to the Delhi Capitals playing XI, scoring a fine 54 off 38 balls against the Punjab Kings on Wednesday.