Batting first, Africa had racked up a score of runs. Stepping up in a tough scenario, the destructive opener smashed the lethal opponent bowling attack comprising Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel all over the park. His innings of runs came in deliveries, the fastest triple century in Test cricket with coming up off just balls. Sehwag had scored runs on the third day of the match — the most scored in a single day since The heroics by Sehwag had resulted in the match ending in a draw.
Both were scored at breathtaking speed against respectable attacks: Pakistan and South Africa. He is a more prolific "big" innings player than anybody in world cricket. Twelve of his last 13 hundreds have been plus: not out, , not out, , , , , , , , , , Barring one, each innings had a strike rate of 70 plus, amazing by Test standards. The against South Africa in Chennai last year had come off just balls — the fastest triple hundred ever scored.
In terms of strike rate, not even Sir Donald Bradman had done better. In his autobiography, All-round View, Pakistan captain Imran Khan said that a batsman must succeed on all kinds of surfaces to be classified as a genuine great. But the reason why he put Vivian Richards ahead of every other batsman in his generation was because he could dominate the bowling more than others. Sehwag too is a dominator, a game changer. In bowlers, he induces a fear factor. No other batsman has reduced world-class bowlers to helplessness as consistently in all forms of the game recently as the Delhi opener.
Only the finest can achieve a strike rate of plus in ODIs after playing over games — His overall ODI average of It is the fact that he has succeeded on his own terms. Affable, and it would be difficult to find another such humble and affable person after him. Sehwag could easily scare the wits out of the bowlers of the opposite team. So much so, that for all the following batsmen, a good match used to be more like a bed of roses for them to shape up their innings.
This was displayed in full force in when India was playing against Australia. The manner in which Sehwag opened the innings — the Aussie bowlers did not even know what hit them!
Perhaps in his heart Viru was aware that in order to facilitate a structured entry for kids in the world of cricket, one needed to move beyond setting coaching centres and rather create opportunities for them to be in the throes of sport from their formative years. Pleasure to have played with you virendersehwag bhai. What an amazing career. But a few would also disagree to the fact that Sehwag was an equally big-threat and a nightmare for the bowlers in Test cricket as well.
Like most of his career, Sehwag continued to demolish reputations and care very little about the outside chatter which was often related to how he should change his game as per the match situation. Despite playing in the company of some of the biggest names of the sport — Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly — Sehwag carved his own path, identity and of course a separate fan base. His impact at the top of the order for India remains unparalleled.
Sehwag always credited former India skipper Ganguly for turning his career around by asking him to open the batting for India.
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