Sehwag to join Sachin in Cricket All-Stars
Recently retired cricketer, Virender Sehwag is the latest entrant into the Cricket All-Stars series which is to be held in the USA next month, ESPNCricinfo reports. The cricket series for retired international cricketers is being co-promoted by Sehwag's former opening batsman Sachin Tendulkar and former Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne.
The three-match T20 series is set to begin on November 7 when the first match will be played in New York. The next two games are to held on November 11 and November 14 in Houston and Los Angeles respectively.
All matches are to be held at baseball stadiums at the respective venues. Drop-in pitches, made in New Zealand, will be used at all the matches.
Sehwag joins Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Ajit Agarkar as the retired Indian internationals who will be featuring in the cricket series. Of all these players, only Sehwag is still playing domestic cricket.
Indian cricket fans will be hoping to see Sehwag and Tendulkar will play in the same team and expectedly open the batting once again, reliving old memories.
Haryana will miss Sehwag's services for a few games in November as he has to go to the USA for the T20 series. Anirudh Chaudhary, the secretary of the Haryana Cricket Association, was of the opinion that the association was not very concerned about Sehwag's absence.
“Every match he is part of this team is huge for this team. Every interaction with him benefits the players. We are looking at him mentoring the players and our objective is achieved by his presence around the squad. Once a player has announced his international retirement, anything he contributes at Ranji level we should gleefully accept,” Chaudhary said.
Sehwag will be able to feature in Haryana's next match against Bengal on October 30 before he leaves for New York. However, there is a good chance that he will be missing the next two games for his new Ranji team.
Haryana's match against Assam is on November 7 while they play Odisha on November 15. These are the two games that Sehwag is likely to miss. Chaudhary told that in case Sehwag plays all the matches in the All-Stars series he will not be able to be in a condition to play against Odisha.
Sehwag has also agreed to be a part of Masters Champions League, another tournament that involves retired cricketers, that is scheduled to take place in January in the UAE.