Former Indian cricketer Virendra Sehwag is known as one of the most aggressive openers of his time. Sehwag, the 'Nawab of Najafgarh’ is considered as one of the players who have revolutionized the dynamics of Test Cricket. He used to attack bowlers from the start and there was rarely any bowler who could keep up with him once he got going.
We all know that it was Sourav Ganguly who gave him the opportunity to be the opener of the Indian cricket team, however, only a few of us know who influenced Ganguly to make Sehwag an opener. It was former pacer Zaheer Khan who suggested Ganguly to make Sehwag an opening batsman.
Sehwag himself has revealed this in a popular Bengali TV show titled Dadagiri Unlimited. He was the guest in a special episode named ‘Dada Tumhe Salaam’ and “Prince of Kolkata” Ganguly was hosting the show. In the show, Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh and R Ashwin were also present.
In the quiz show, Sehwag recalled earlier days and said that from 1999 until December 2000, he played a lot of first-class cricket and scored a lot of runs, and when he returned to the Indian team, Sourav Ganguly was the captain. He added that Ganguly selected him for the Indian team for the Zimbabwe tour in December 2000. Sehwag went on to say that despite failing in 15 to 20 innings, Ganguly believed in him and gave him a lot of opportunities.
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He gave Ganguly the credit for making him a great player by always believing in him. Further, Sehwag also revealed that it was ex-Indian pacer Zaheer Khan who had recommended him as an opener.
Shewag stated that During the 2001 Sri Lanka tour, the Indian team tried several openers, including Yuvraj Singh, Hemang Badani, and Amay Khurasiya, but none of them made runs. Following this Zaheer Khan recommended to Ganguly that he should try me (Sehwag). Sehwag recalled that he used to chide Zaheer for making his suggestion. However, he admitted that he was wrong and thanked Zaheer and Ganguly for giving him the opportunity. “If they had not made me an opener, I might not have been able to score so many runs.
Virendra Sehwag, the opening batsman of team India, emerged as a prolific run-scorer across all formats. The Indian team's opening batsman has been a prolific run-scorer in all forms. In Test match cricket, the ace cricketer's strike rate of 82.2 says everything about his hard-hitting batting style. In red-ball cricket, he has scored 8568 runs, including two spectacular triple hundreds. He also holds the record for being the first Indian batsman to hit a triple century in a Test match. Sehwag has scored 8273 runs in 251 ODIs.