Chennai: I decided to catch up with Virender Sehwag just before the start of play yesterday. He went on to make the day so very special with his triple century.

I had never interacted with him on all my tours and I didn’t know what to expect. He always looked serious, a little bit intimidating and completely uninterested in giving interviews. But Viru turned out to be quite a surprise package.

Photo: Virender Sehwag with Archana Vijayan before yesterday’s play

As we were getting ready to start the interview, Viru turned to me and my producer and said that he will only answer questions pertaining to the series. So I got started with with queries on his good spell Down Under and what he hoped to achieve in this series which led to a regular, straight-jacketed interview.

Personal

This is when I decided to take a little bit of a risk and ask him some ‘masaledar’ questions and get a little personal and much to my good fortune, he opened up!

“I love spending time with my wife, my five-month son and my extended family,” said Sehwag.

Perfect date?

And what would be Sehwag’s idea of a perfect date? “It would be with my wife somewhere in the world where nobody recognises me.”

Viru also wished that his father were alive to see his recent spate of successes. Sehwag Sr passed away last year and Viru was known to be quite close to him.

Sehwag revealed that his best buddies in the Indian team were Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh.

And well, the nawab even revealed his liking for the Bollywood damsel, Madhuri Dixit and the everlasting music of Kishore Kumar.

(Watch Archana Vijaya on Tour Diary: 8:30am and 5pm on Neo Sports)