It wasn't quite Michael Slater at Edgbaston – there was no shell-shocked Darren Gough at the receiving end for one thing – but Virender Sehwag's opening act was swashbuckling enough. On a pitch that resembled the average Indian sleeping beauty, Sehwag made light of the early loss of Wasim Jaffer to rattle along at a pace that stretched Nasser Hussain's threadbare bowling resources to breaking point. At the press conference last night, Hussain joked of 600 to 700 being a safe score against this Indian batting line-up. It didn't seem so funny to Englishmen by close on day two. A pitch with some devils in it can still rattle this Indian team, but honest endeavour of the Matthew Hoggard – Craig White variety? There's more chance of flying pink creatures that go oink-oink…

Sehwag's promotion up the order has been debated to death in India, from commentary box to chai stall. The purists were understandably horrified about another middle-order stroke player being pushed up as a sacrificial lamb. But ask them for options, and there is no answer. Shiv Sunder Das has been a camel in the run desert, with Zimbabwe bowling his only oases. Deep Dasgupta is at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, while the highly-rated Gautham Gambhir is best off honing his skills against the lesser attacks that the A team will face.

And Sehwag proved today that he would be no token sacrifice. The best thing about the younger elements in the Indian camp is their enthusiasm and their youthful belief, sometimes misguided, that nothing is beyond them. Sehwag is hardly the traditional opener, battling as he does with the urge to belt the leather covering off every delivery. But as Slater showed us with such élan over a career that now sadly seems to be over, there is nothing quite like an attacking opener to set the klaxons off in the opposition dressing room. And make no mistake, Sehwag is not the crude slogger that some ignorant observers make him out to be. He does play away from his body quite often, but so does every Tom, Dick and Shahid in international cricket these days. At other times, he strikes the ball with a flourish and a sense of timing that is breathtaking to behold.

He is best when he combines orthodoxy with a flair that is all his own. The flick off the hips that he played so often and so fluently today is one such, as is the cover-drive that is a bludgeoned caress. A Gavaskar he will never be…there is nothing remotely "killing `em softly" about his batting, 84 runs from 96 balls bears testimony to that. But he could be a revelation in his own way at the top of the order, though a country so starved of quality openers would do well to reserve judgement till he emerges unscathed from a green top.

The day ended on a note of true farce, with Ashish Nehra sent in – and sent packing - as nightwatchman. Last we knew, guys sent in to do such duty had at least some batting credentials. Anil Kumble or Ajay Ratra would have been ideal candidates, instead of Nehra who is such a rabbit that he makes Glenn McGrath look like Hutton-esque.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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