On this day in 1978, former India opening batter Virender Sehwag was born. He has turned 45 years old. Meanwhile, talking about his career, he came from a very humble background as his family ran a flour mill. Meanwhile, his career took a leap when he opened the batting in an ODI game in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar.
On the other hand, during India’s tour of England 2002, the right-hander opened the batting in Tests for the first time and his life changed a lot. Talking about the longest-format of the game, despite having a riskier strike rate of 82.23 (extremely risky in red-ball cricket), the two-time World Cup winner amassed 8586 runs in 104 games.
On the other hand, the 45-year-old didn’t have enough success in the ODI format, although he won a lot of games for the team. The former Delhi Daredevils and Punjab Kings player in the IPL amassed 8273 runs averaging 35.05 in 251 games. In the 19 T20I games, Sehwag has 394 runs with a highest score of 68. His two T20 centuries came in the IPL, one each for the teams he played.
One cannot forget how big a role he played during the T20 World cUP 2007 and ODI World Cup 2011 wins. In the ODI WC 12 years back, the former Leicestershire player, he scored a lot of first-ball fours in the game. However, after this tournament, his career had a stop-gap journey before getting dropped from the team in 2012-13.
After this, he never played for India and on the day of his 37th birthday, he announced his retirement from the game in the oblivion. These days, he continue to work as an expert, having worked as a team mentor in the Punjab Kings side from 2016 to 2017
Also read: OTD | MS Dhoni became the first player to feature in 200 matches in IPL