Sehwag recalls how he copied Tendulkar during 1992 World Cup

Former India opener Virender Sehwag on Wednesday (June 9) recollected how he copied legendary batsman and his longtime opening partner Sachin Tendulkar after watching him bat for the first time on TV during the 1992 World Cup. "Cricket is played on the ground but a lot can be learned. If I give my own example, I started watching cricket from the 1992 World Cup and at that time used to watch (Sachin) Tendulkar and copy him.

"...How he plays the straight drives, how he plays the back-foot punch... In 1992, if I could watch TV and learn a bit, why not," said Sehwag, who is also the founder of Cricsguru app.

Sehwag, who was joined by former India opener and co-founder Sanjay Bangar at the app's launch, also stressed on the importance of learning cricket from watching videos shared by great players. "But in today's time if you have videos of these cricketers whom you admire -- Ab De Villiers, Brian Lara, Chris Gayle or Virender Sehwag, or other players, then their videos are available. In our time, such videos were not available.

"If in my time such facilities were there like I could speak to someone online or subscribe the videos with ease, then I would have done that and could have learned better and early and could have played for India early," said Sehwag.

Stressing the importance of both mental and skill aspects in the game, Sehwag maintained that Bangar told him how even international cricketers are finding it difficult to find their mistakes. "The mental aspect is important and we have to launch (the app) with the mental aspect and later on we can go with cricket skills. But When I spoke with Sanjay (Bangar) and (then) Sanjay told me that the mental aspect is important but skill is also important.

"Because he spent so much time with the Indian cricket team as a batting coach and he told me that a lot of even international cricketers are finding difficulty (finding it difficult) to find their mistakes and correct them," said Sehwag.

Sehwag launches cricket website 'CRICURU'

Sehwag launched cricket coaching website "CRICURU" with an aim to redefine the learning experience for budding players. The curriculum for each player has been developed by Sehwag along with former India batsman and batting coach Sanjay Bangar.

"The country's first AI-enabled coaching website aims to offer a personalised learning experience for the younger players and help youngsters learn playing cricket through master classes of 30 player coaches from across the globe with about four hours of curated video content with each coach," a released stated.

The coaches include the likes of AB de Villiers, Brett Lee, Brian Lara, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Harbhajan Singh, Jonty Rhodes among others. "At CRICURU our aim is to develop an ecosystem to democratize cricket learning in India and bridge the existing gaps.

"Our curriculum is designed meticulously giving access to coaching experts from across the globe to offer an uninterrupted coaching experience for aspiring cricketers at par with international standards of cricket," Sehwag said.

Bangar added: "The vision behind CRICURU is to offer access to cricket coaching for people living anywhere across the country, even Tier 2 and 3 cities which can be easily accessed from the comfort of your homes."