Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly gave Indian cricket a plethora of superstars at the international level.
One of Ganguly’s many masterstrokes was allowing ‘Nawab of Najafgarh’ Virender Sehwag to open the innings in the presence of a star-studded Indian middle-order.
Ganguly’s trust paid rich dividends for Indian cricket as Sehwag blossomed into one of the most feared openers in all forms of the game, especially in Test cricket.
Sehwag could turn the tide of the match in India’s favour within a session, through his swashbuckling approach.
Further, Viru has three triple-tons to his name in red-ball cricket, along with 23 hundreds. He has stockpiled over 8500 Test runs.
Now, Sehwag’s partner in crime for both Delhi and India, Gautam Gambhir has claimed that the former holds an untouchable status in Test cricket as a batsman.
“No one can match Sehwag’s impact in Tests. No one actually thought he could be such a successful Test opener. People always thought he was always going to be a much more successful white-ball cricketer. But if you look at his records, he is far more successful in red-ball cricket. And that is Virender Sehwag for you,” Gambhir said on Star Sports’ show, ‘Cricket Connected’.
Then, Gambhir cited out the famous Indian win at the Chennai Test match, during England’s 2008 tour.
India chased down an improbable target of 387 in fourth innings on the back of a sensational start provided by Sehwag.
“I remember one inning which was played in Chennai when we won the Test match against England. We were chasing around 350-odd (387, actually) on a turner, where they had Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, and Virender Sehwag got 60-odd runs (Sehwag had scored 83),” Gambhir added.
Later on, the likes of Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar capitalized after the momentum provided by the ‘Sultan of Multan’.
“Just by scoring 60 (83 actually), if you can become a man of the match, that shows the impact of the person. And, just set up the game, if Virender Sehwag bats till Lunch, you will be at around 100. Not a lot of team approach Test cricket like that, when you are batting on Day 1, you want to be as loose as you can. But Virender Sehwag was absolutely different. So that’s why anyone can match his impact in Test cricket,” Gambhir concluded.
