The Indian National Cricket Team has always been one of the top producers of quality batsmen. Though they have many stalwarts, the batting lineup, which used to play under Sourav Ganguly has a greater impact for India. From Virender Sehwag to Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid to VVS Laxman, India had a stunning lineup to torment opposition.
Fondly called the Nawab of Najafgarh, this Delhi batsman Virender Sehwag, who later went on to play for Haryana, scored 8586 Test runs in 104 matches, with 23 centuries and 32 half-centuries to his name. He is the only Indian to have scored two triple centuries in Test cricket.
Virender Sehwag was an impactful player – Rashid Latif
Speaking of Virender Sehwag, the former skipper of Pakistan Latif said that Sehwag used to take on the likes of Wasim Akram, Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath from the outset and every opposition was vary of Sehwag’s impact in the game.
“He used to play to dominate. We are used to openers who were a bit circumspect at the beginning, gauging how the pitch is, who the bowler is whether (Glenn) McGrath, Brett Lee, Wasim Akram or Shoaib Akhtar. But Sehwag was someone who feared none. He was an impactful player, had a great influence in his team and players like him succeed in world cricket,” Latif said in a Youtube show called Caught Behind.
He would have crossed 10,000 runs;
Further in the chat, the veteran of 166 ODIs said that his numbers in international cricket would have been even more staggering if he played for any other team. He believes that Sehwag has been under the shadow of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
“Sehwag’s record speaks for him. He has 8 thousand plus runs in Test cricket. He is someone who has always remained under the shadows of other players. Viru played with Sachin, played with Rahul and remained under their shadow. If he was playing for any other country then he would’ve easily crossed 10 thousand runs, only one and a half thousand runs were remaining.”
Besides Test Cricket, Sehwag had scored 8273 runs in 251 matches. Sehwag’s record against Pakistan was phenomenal. The dashing opener scored 1276 runs in 9 Tests against Pakistan at a staggering average of 91.14 that had 4 centuries and a triple century.
