In the long chronology of cricket history, there are players who have come out as trendsetters and redefined the science of cricket in the most surreal ways. And during the significant period of time in red-ball cricket format the idea of an opener was to survive the initial overs or the first hour of a match to provide a better start to the team in test cricket. The chronology of cricket has witnessed the gems like Sir Sunil Gavaskar or Martin Crowe who had destroyed the opposition bowling attacks with their surreal hand-eye coordination or sound character back in that era of great bowling attacks.
Who was the better batsman Virender Sehwag vs Sunil Gavaskar
Back in the 60s to 70s to 80s, cricket was quite different from the current era of cricket as many batting stalwarts were an artist’s of complete batting coaching manuals with an ideal batting stance techniques. While towards the 90s era, cricket was played in two formats with newly invented format termed as a limited overs cricket which witnessed many attacking players like Saeed Anwar, Mathew Hayden and Sanath Jayasuriya turned out to be the trendsetters with fearless cricket in the first hour of a match. While in test cricket it was pretty much the same stuff of batting fans were witnessing from the long time of cricket and change is the law of nature and which was arrived in the form in the most unexpected way by an opener across the formats to end the customary way of batting.
While towards the end of 90s era, there came the tornado termed as Virender Sehwag who was the complete different cricketer with his surreal hand-eye coordination straight through his domestic cricket career and was in spotlight for many handful knocks in domestic cricket before his debut for team India. The batting idea of Virender Sehwag was straightforward – see the ball hit the ball and he was quite successful in that too throughout his career with many surreal knocks under his name.
The once in a blue moon player at last made his test debut against South Africa at Bloemfontein where he smashed his maiden test century against the best bowling attack of South Africa. The inning was not fluke at all and with every innings passed the opener has established himself as the most successful opener in the Indian Cricket History ever. Sehwag was the gifted player of hand-eye coordination which when combined with timing turned out to be a nightmare for any opposition and made the fans like me watch their performances on the loop.
The explosive opener was the big match player who has the ability to play marathon innings against quality bowling attacks and he has great numbers to back his case with more than 11-150 runs for men in blue in red ball cricket format.
For the long period of time, team India was struggling to find opening batting pair in the test cricket which were ended finally by Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag the two Delhi batsman who played cricket for same domestic team. Both these batsman were very successful for team India in test cricket.
Then came the golden era of Indian Cricket Team under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly where fearless hitter has proved his authority as the most successful opener across the formats under the great batting line-up of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and skipper himself Sourav Ganguly. This was probably the most complete Indian batting line-up of team India ever.
At the top of batting order, Virender Sehwag had taken the cricket to almost new heights with his own way of cricketing abilities from the other contemporaries of his era. Sehwag has always relied on his hand-eye coordination and challenged the critics along with pundits with great numbers under his name to be the most complete opening ever in the entire existence of world cricket.
On 29th March 2004 Sehwag Became The First Indian To Score 300 In Test
In his prime days, there was hardly a batsman who could match up the instincts of Virender Sehwag by any margin of aspect. Although players like Mathew Hayden, Sanath Jayasuriya and Saeed Anwar were in the same frame as the explosive openers but by miles of difference, Virender Sehwag was in the league of his own with his surreal hand-eye coordination. Team India has the long history of great batting stalwarts like Sir Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Viswanth (my dad said it many times he was the player ahead of its time and was at once better than Sunil Gavaskar) and Rahul Dravid but there was hardly a player who could touch the milestone of 300-run mark in test cricket history.
But the arrival of Virender Sehwag has not changed the perception of batting but also ended the drought of triple Centurion in test cricket for team India not once but twice. Even the third time he was almost there just felt short of 7 runs. The first triple century came against Pakistan when he scored 309 runs by lifting up the Saqlain Mushtaq for six to complete his triple hundred. This knock has termed him as multan ka sultan.
Also Read | Top 5 Surreal Records In Cricket History
The second triple hundred 319 against South Africa all-time best bowling attack was the statement from swashbuckling opener that it’s not fluke to score two triple hundreds in the longest format of game. The second triple hundred came in just 278 balls which is the fastest by any batsman ever in the history. While Sehwag was just there to score his third triple hundred when he got out at 293 against Sri Lanka.
Sehwag has played many knocks in his career but one knock will always be the best when he hammered 195 against Australia in Australia, it was innings filled with pure class of supreme talent. With more 8000 runs in both the formats and part of three world cup campaigns of team India, Virender Sehwag will go down as the most successful opener ever and it’s not definitely hard to see another player of same calibre even in the coming decades or centuries easily.
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