'Tum bowling kar rahe ho ya bheekh maang rahe ho?' - When Virender Sehwag sledged Shoaib Akhtar brutally

Think of a belligerent display of the bat accompanied by sheer entertainment and one cannot miss the name of Virender Sehwag. He was considered one of the most effortless batters of his era who possessed an attacking game. His one such innings that is etched into the minds of many cricket on-lookers is his knock of 309 in Multan. Thus, Sanjay Manjrekar recounted an anecdote from that game while pointing out Sehwag’s style of play.

Manjrekar recalled the incident wherein Sehwag made the Pakistan bowlers toil hard as he smashed 309 runs off 375 balls in Multan in a match that India won by an innings and 52 runs. Opening up on it, Manjrekar said that Sehwag had crossed the 200-run mark and a frustrated Shoaib Akhtar was bowling a lot of bouncers which the batter was leaving. Thus in the wake of instigating Sehwag, Akhtar walked up to him and asked him to play a pull shot. Sanjay added that Sehwag being one of his kind came up with a funny reply to his sledging.

“Akhtar kept bowling them and Sehwag kept ducking bouncers. To instigate Sehwag, Akhtar told him – you have scored over 200 runs, I am bowling so many bouncers, at least hit one pull shot. Sehwag looked at him nonchalantly and said – tum bowling kar rahe ho ya bheekh maang rahe ho” Manjrekar said while speaking to Sportskeeda.

The batting firepower of Virender Sehwag

Virender Sehwag is often renowned for his aggressive and dominant batting display on the field. When it came to hitting boundaries he would never be hesitant to target bowlers even if it was the first ball of the innings. He is the only Indian batter to hit two triple hundreds in Tests. One of them came in Multan against the arch-rivals Pakistan in 2004 and 319 against South Africa in Chennai in 2008.

Not only this, he has always been an entertaining player on and off the field. When it was Sehwag on the 22 yards, entertainment was almost likely to be present alongside him. He has had some amazing partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar while holding the opening fort of India. His presence in the side alone was a big asset for any skipper he played under.