There was a time when British journalist Piers Morgan tried to shame India for celebrating a silver and a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics and former Indian opener, Virender Sehwag had talked some sense into him.

Sehwag, eventually, revealed that infamous journalist Arnab Goswami had invited him to talk about his rift with Morgan and that the cricketer had refused this offer because he didn’t believe in adding fuel to the fire.

We cherish every small happiness',
But Eng who invented Cricket,&yet2win a WC,still continue to playWC.Embarrassing? https://t.co/0mzP4Ro8H9

That was a little over four years ago.

Today, if you look at Virender Sehwag talk about cricket and break down player profiles for all the world-class superstars based on their IPL performance, all that class, all the charm is gone.

His single-man talk show series that he uploads from his Facebook page titled Viru Ki Baithak consists of unfunny one-liners, condescending jokes against his former teammates and opponents and unbelievably hypocritical statements when it comes to critiquing an off-form player.

It is more noise than substance, more jokes over analysis, more of a comedy show than a respectable former cricketing legend talking about the game he loves (or at least used to love).

When it comes to cricket, it doesn’t matter how fat or skinny a player is. As long as he is making runs or taking wickets for the team, he is a valuable asset to the squad. 

However, for Sehwag, body-shaming athletes became another means to remain in the headlines. 

Sehwag saying @ImRo45 VADAPAV

Viru Pa got no chill #RohitSharma #sehwag #IPL2020 pic.twitter.com/KSgQ5nDK4H

Referring to an injured Rohit Sharma as ‘vada pav’ and his Mumbai Indians replacement Saurabh Tiwary as ‘samosa pav’ got him a lot of laughs and more and more people with a lust for spicey content flocked over to his channel. 

Calling names to gain popularity… where have we seen that before?

And then there are the unwarranted comments that get him international fame. 

Recently, Sehwag was talking about Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell and his poor performance during the 2020 season of the Indian Premier League.

Having played in 13 matches, Maxwell managed to put up just 108 runs and played with a strike rate 101.88. A horrible season without a doubt but to be called a “10-crore cheerleader” is simply uncalled for, especially when Sehwag himself wasn’t a bigshot for the entirety of his IPL career.

© Twitter - KXIP

The difference between Arnab Goswami’s show and Sehwag’s “show” is that at least Goswami comes up with controversial quotes on the spot. It is outright sad to think that Sehwag would sit in a corner and write these “zesty zings” in his well-drafted scripts before going on camera.

There is a reason why people prefer Harsha Bhogle over Sanjay Manjrekar and it definitely is not for his stinging insults. 

When the quality of the content that you put out in the world is good enough, you don’t need to bank on additional aid for your audience to accept it. 

One-liners and attempted humour only come into play when even the creator isn’t confident about his work and Virender Sehwag is currently well-settled in the second category.

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