On this day Virender Sehwag created history and became only the second-ever player to score a double century in ODI cricket. He achieved this feat against the West Indies in 2011 at Indore. Throughout his career, he played this game with an expressive and no-nonsense style. It was befitting that a batter of his caliber broke the record for the highest individual score in an ODI match that Sachin Tendulkar earlier held.
Absolute Carnage from Sehwag
Virender Sehwag, also captaining the team in the match, won the toss and elected to bat first. He built a fantastic opening partnership with Gautam Gambhir and added 176 runs for the first wicket which pushed West Indies on the back foot. A large share of those 176 runs were made by Virender Sehwag which is reflective of the fact that he took on the bowlers right from the start and didn’t give them any chance to settle down.
After Gambhir’s departure, Sehwag stitched another strong partnership with Suresh Raina. Sehwag batted till the 47th over and carried India to a massive total. Because of his absolute domination, India managed to put up 418 runs on the board at the loss of 5 wickets.
Smooth Sailing in the second innings
It was a mammoth total for the West Indies to chase down and the Indian bowling attack kept the West Indian batting order under pressure throughout the chase. Spinners like Ravindra Jadeja and Rahul Sharma troubled the opposition batters and helped India restrict them to a low total of 265 runs. Courtesy of a solid team performance India won the match by 153 runs.
The day and match belonged to only one player and that was Virender Sehwag. He was adjudged the player of the match for his stupendous double-century which he made off just 149 deliveries.
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