Sourav Ganguly makes a big comment on Virender Sehwag’s batting

Former India opener Virender Sehwag is one of the best openers India ever had. A swashbuckling batsman with several records under his belt, Sehwag was a national star. However, former India captain Sourav Ganguly feels that Sehwag would not have been as good a batsman as he was if didn’t open the innings and bat as an opener.

Sehwag began his career as a No. 4 batsman

It can be recalled that Sehwag didn’t begin his career as an opener but as a no. 4 batsman. It was in 2002 when in a match against Sri Lanka in 2002, the then captain Ganguly promoted him to the opening spot, after which we saw Sehwag 2.0. He went on to pile lots and lots of runs and became one of the finest openers in Indian history. While citing Virender Sehwag and his story, Ganguly also recalled how he started his career in the middle order but was promoted to the opening spot later on.

“I was just pushed into it. Like I did to Sehwag. That’s why in this book [A Century Is Not Enough] I’ve mentioned that the best things in life are unwanted. So be open. And be approachable. Don’t close your mind to things. And it came out from my own experience as an opener,” Ganguly told Scroll.

“The way Hayden and Langer went about as openers. That forced me to push Sehwag as an opener. I said ‘You do it. We’ll see what happens.’ And Sehwag wouldn’t have been half the player if he wasn’t an opener. So I’m convinced that the best things in life happen unwanted. From nowhere,” he added.

His career in brief

Sehwag, who turned into a commentator after retirement, played 104 Tests, 251 ODIs and 19 Tests for India in which he scored 8586, 8273 and 394 runs respectively.

Sehwag is the only Indian to have scored a triple century and has done so twice—309 against Pakistan in Multan in 2004 and 319 against South Africa in Chennai in 2008.