VIRENDER SEHWAG – 195, 2003
The 2003-04 Border-Gavaskar Trophy saw the resurgence of Indian team under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly. Indian was touring Australia after the 2001 series at home, which stopped the Australian winning streak in Tests at 16 wins.
India came into the 3rd Test at MCG after drawing the first Test at Brisbane and winning the second in Adelaide, leading the series 1-0.
Ganguly won the toss and opted to bat first and Virender Sehwag took the bull by its horns and smacked 195 runs in 233 balls with 25 fours and 5 sixes. The assault was special as India was losing wickets at the other end with next best scores being 49 by Dravid and 48 by Aakash Chopra.
His innings was so furious that Australian bowling was stunned at one point of time and by the time his wicket fell at the score of 311, he was going to hit a six to reach his double hundred on day one. He fell to part-timer Simon Katich, caught by Bracken.
India was dismissed for 366. Australia scored 558 with Ponting making 257 and Hayden making 136. India was only able to make 286 runs with Dravid making 92 and Ganguly making 73 runs. Set a mere 95 runs to win, Australia achieved the target losing just 1 wicket and won the match by 9 wickets.
India was unable to take advantage of the brilliant knock by Sehwag that was scored at a furious rate and if other batsmen had been able to shepherd the score with him going berserk at the other end, India might have put up a bigger score on board and avoid defeat.
The defeat didn’t take any sheen away from Sehwag’s assault innings of 195 and it goes down as one of the great centuries scored by an Indian batsman in Australia.
