Former India captain and smashing opener Virender Sehwag is celebrating his 43rd birthday today on October 20. Sehwag is considered to be one of the most devastating openers of all time in all three formats of the game and perhaps an all-time great in Test format as well.
Starting his career as a lower-order spinning all-rounder, Sehwag made his India debut in 1999 against Pakistan in ODIs, but his career took off after then captain Sourav Ganguly asked him to open in the ODIs and then in Tests as well. Sehwag had already scored a century on his Test debut against South Africa in 2001 in Bloemfontein.
Sehwag was born to make history which he did in 2004 in a Test in Multan, becoming the first Indian batter to hit a Test triple century. He then became one of the only four batters to hit two triple centuries in Tests when repeated the feat against South Africa in 2008. His 319 and 309 remain the top two highest Test scores by an Indian batter.
The right-hander from Najafgarh was also the first captain to hit a double-century in ODIs when he hit 219 against West Indies in 2011, which was also the highest ODI score at that time until Rohit Sharma broke the record with his 264.
Sehwag was also part of the Indian team which won the T20 World Cup in 2007 and the ODI World Cup in 2011, where he started off with a record 175 in the first match against Bangladesh.
He remained a force in the Indian Premier League, captaining the Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings teams, scoring 2728 runs 104 matches with 2 centuries and 16 half-centuries at a strike rate of 155.44 and the highest score of 122. He hit 106 sixes and 334 fours in his IPL career from 2008-2015.
Sehwag’s international career ended in 2013 and he announced his retirement in 2015. In all, he played 104 Tests, 251 ODIs, and 19 T20I matches for India, captain the national team in their first-ever T20I match in 2006.
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He scored 8566 Test runs with 23 centuries, 8273 runs in ODIs with 15 centuries and 394 T20I runs with 2 fifties to his name. He also picked 40 Test and 96 ODI wickets and has a Test five-wicket haul to his name.
After retirement, Sehwag has made a name for himself as a commentator and has an entertaining presence on social media. Today as he turns 43, the intimidating batter received lots of birthday wishes from the Indian cricket fraternity on Twitter.
Here are the tweets:
